One Dollar Cover, Warm Beer and Good Old Soul Music

E. Mark Windle 22 March 2025.

I reckon there will be a few tears shed in the Carolina Rock n Roll Remembered and I Remember the Cellar Facebook groups this week. I just discovered on my social media feed that The Cellar burned down early Saturday morning. Once upon a time, this place really meant something to the music-loving teenagers of Charlotte.

The first time I set eyes on this venue was 12 years ago. I’ve got to admit, by then it looked it had seen better days. Complete with tattered awning, overgrown weeds out front, and dwarfed by the glass and metal high-rise monoliths on the opposite side of Morehead Street, The Cellar’s presence seemed at odds with the rest of the urban landscape.

It was business that brought me to North Carolina that day. A couple of old timer musicians were teed up for interview as part of a new book project. I was here to meet Nat Speir, first on my list. His claim to fame was his role as sax player and co-founder The Rivieras, a Charlotte band who enjoyed repeat bookings at The Cellar. Their one record, “Behold”, got a fair amount of airplay during the mid ’60s, but without a manager or decent promotion, national success eluded them. Nat had no issue with that though (in a twist of fate, the record had a new lease of life when the flipside was “rediscovered” 20 years later by an underground soul scene in the UK).

Nat was just happy enjoying life on the stage and the road, creating music and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Gladys Knight (before her Motown days), Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs of “Stay” fame, and Curtis Mayfield with the rest of The Impressions. In fact, throughout his whole life Nat been involved in the industry in one way or another. When I met him, he was just about to retire as a music teacher.

With Nat Speir outside The Cellar (2013).

This was my first visit to Charlotte. After being treated to a whirlwind tour of the main sights Nat suggested it might be fun to try find the old place. It had been decades since The Rivieras last played The Cellar. It took an age to get our bearings, but eventually we were climbing over the wall of an abandoned parking lot and peering through the grated windows of the old red-brick building.

I was already aware of some of The Cellar’s history. Its heyday was in the ’60s, when the cover was one dollar. And it was something of a mecca for those who came to hear their regular favourite bands and guest appearances from out of state. OK, so it wasn’t always swinging from the rafters. But the local bands had a very loyal crowd, and whenever soul acts came to town the place was sure to be rocking. For many kids, this was the first chance to see singers perform who had previously only been heard on Big Ways or on late night WLAC. Old Cellar bill posters read like a who’s who of R&B singers, groups and beach music bands: The Rivieras, The Tempests, The Tams, The Soul Set, The Catalinas, The Georgia Prophets, Billy Stewart, Archie Bell and the Drells and many more. One band, Soul Inc., even recorded a live LP there.

Image courtesy of Malcolm Collins.

When Motown or Stax artists came to town it was logistically easier—and cheaper—to hire local bands as backup. The nearby Park Center had the capacity to host the larger shows, but The Cellar saw more than its fair share of household names. The Rivieras played both; at one point maybe twice a week and at weekends.

Once they were connected with Ted Hall’s Hit Attractions and other agencies, bookings for The Rivieras came in to open for or back up a huge array of visiting recording stars. Nat recalls: “We ended up playing with just about every major soul and R&B act of the day that came to the southeast — Stevie Wonder, The Tops, The Temps, The Marvelettes, The Platters, The Olympics, The Five Royals, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Barbara Lewis, Peaches and Herb, Wilson Pickett… Did I miss anyone out?”

I live on the wrong side of the Atlantic and would have been far too young for The Cellar anyway, but multiple references from former Cellar-goers had provided some sense of the atmosphere. Hot sticky summer nights. Warm beer. And, on busy nights, the crowd packed in like sardines.

Image courtesy of Malcolm Collins.

“Growing up in the south—in my neighbourhood and in that era—meant you loved soul and Motown,” says Jackie Freeman Panos. The Cellar was our weekly fix. We had fake ID cards to get in, but alcohol laws were different then anyway; you could drink beer at eighteen. The place was dark, crowded and LOUD! We’d wiggle through until we got next to the stage during the live band performances. It was just a magical age to socialise, listen to music and dance the night away. If a group of boys were on that could really play soul music, the girls would go crazy!”

Eventually those teenagers entered adulthood, and life moved on. College, jobs, Vietnam, and marriage were calling. The halcyon days of soul music were fading, at least in these parts. Stax and the Motor City were still producing the goods, but like much of the South, Charlotte youth were hungry for something new.

Southern rock was now the thing. But The Cellar’s attempts to keep up with musical, social and cultural shifts of the times were met with only varying degrees of success. By the late ‘70s a new generation of kids were done with the Allman Brothers and the Marshall Tucker Band. The Cellar tried disco for a while. Then in the 1980s it was country music time, along with temporary venue name change to Country Underground. It changed again to Machine Gun Kelly’s. Then, I’ve been told, it was back to The Cellar and finally the Morehead Tavern. Somewhere along the line, that building by the rail track had lost its soul and fizzled out as social gathering place.

Nat preferred happier memories. As we headed back to his place, tales of the good old days continued. The afternoon was spent sampling Mrs Speir’s fine Key Lime pie, holding court over how much the city had changed through the decades, and discussing our mutual respect for soul music. When done, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Two weeks later I was back in the UK. Three months on, It’s Better To Cry was written, and by Christmas it was published. In time, Nat was even inspired to write his memoirs. We continue to stay in touch to this day.

8am, Saturday 15 March 2025: Charlotte Fire Department are called to a huge blaze at Morehead Tavern. As the emergency services attempt to deal with the incident, the roof and upper floor collapse. Within a matter of hours, the whole building is razed to the ground. At this point nobody knows how it started, though there’s no shortage of speculation (“insurance fraud — it’s hardly ever open”) and incurious comments (“nobody ever goes there anymore”). Meanwhile older folks feel the need to mourn the loss of an old friend, and start sharing their treasured memories on social media.

Surrounded by prime real estate, I’m sure the demolition will soon make way for another office building and it’ll seem like The Cellar never existed. Gone maybe, but for one generation never to be forgotten.

(Copyright 2025) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has also worked as a senior writer with Story Terrace (London, UK), and for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA). To discuss services, contact Mark via https://windlefreelance.com/contact/

This Parched Land: The Weaponisation of Water in Gaza

E. Mark Windle 10 March 2025.

Access to safe, and adequate amounts of water is a fundamental requirement for human survival. With its role in digestion processes, temperature regulation, cognitive function, and metabolism, even moderate deficits can adversely affect these biological systems. In the complete absence of access to water, adult survival rarely extends beyond four or five days. Babies and young infants may succumb within half that time, particularly where malnutrition, diarrhoea and disease coexist. The tragic reality is that over two billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, whether due to climate, conflict, politics or poverty.

For Gaza, the few waterways that exist inside its borders were never going to be capable of sustaining the needs of a forcefully inflated population. Fed by its major tributary the Besor Stream, the Wadi Gaza is the only natural source of flowing surface water in the Strip. Now it is filled with untreated sewage and is a major source of bacterial and viral infection. The coastal aquifer — Gaza’s groundwater basin — has suffered the same fate. Less than 5% of water from either source was suitable for human consumption, even before the Israel-Hamas war. In the past, blame has been placed on apathy, mismanagement, over-extraction of the aquifer and a lack of regulation by Gazan authorities. The root cause of water scarcity lies elsewhere. For decades, Israel’s politics, military action and urban planning have resulted in the diversion and utilisation of waterways for self-serving purposes.

Military Orders no. 58, 92 and 158

The entire population of the Levant — Arab, Jewish, Bedouin and others — suffered oppression through the restricted availability of food and water at some point in history, whether by natural or man-made means. One early reference point for Israel’s part in this is the start of the Nakba in the late 1940s. Systemic and violent depopulation of Arab villages created the diaspora whose descendants now inhabit Gaza.

Things took a further malevolent turn in 1967, when Israel enforced a series of military edicts in Gaza and the West Bank. Military Order no. 58 stated all new water installations required approval via a permit application system. Rejection of requests could occur without any obligation on the part of the licencing officer to provide a reason. Under Order no. 92, all water issues were to be referred to an Israeli court-appointed water officer, again with no option for appeal on outcomes. Military Order no. 158 cemented the issue. All wells, springs and new water projects were now to be held strictly under military command, with the added threat of immediate confiscation and arrest if any licence application processes were bypassed.

The overwhelming suspicion was these restrictions were further steps to assist the expulsion of the Arab community from the land. This was confirmed by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s comment that “We should deal with this issue quietly, calmly and covertly, and should be finding a way for them to emigrate to other countries…perhaps if we don’t give them enough water, they won’t have a choice, because the orchards will yellow and wither.”

Blockade and the destruction of water infrastructure

Prior to 7th October 2023, there were three main sources of potable water in Gaza. Three large desalination plants provided around 7% of needs. Their capacity depended heavily on available fuel and electricity supplies. Mekorot, the state-run company that supplies most of Israel’s own drinking water and farm irrigation needs, provided a further 13% of Gaza’s water requirements. This was via three mainline pipes connected to Israel’s National Water Carrier network, as part of a purchase agreement between Mekorot and the Palestinian Authority. But with supply levels again under strict control of the Israeli government, the taps were turned off on 9th October 2023.

Gazan Water Authority engineers stood by and watched as each of the Mekorot pipe output dials plummeted from about 1000 cubic metres per hour to zero. Supply was restored some days later following demands from the international community but levels never returned to that of pre-conflict times. The remainder of Gaza’s water came from about 300 wells which extracted aquifer water, which was then processed by small desalination units. Virtually all of the collected aquifer water was considered unfit for human consumption, due to sewage contamination.

At the start of the Israel-Hamas war, assessing the initial extent of airstrike damage to wells, pumps and pumping stations was difficult. There were a couple of knowns, quite apart from the chronically contaminated aquifer and disrupted water treatment systems. With Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s announcement of an immediate and complete blockade, chances of water brought across the border by truck were nil. Electricity and gas would also no longer be supplied to Gaza. Shutdown of most of the desalination plants was therefore inevitable. Some plants had been installed with solar panel fields over the years as a way of circumventing blockades, but the high visibility of the panels only made them easy targets for the IDF.

Progressive extensions made by Israel to the evacuation zones put further demands on the limited available water supplies in the south, as civilians were funnelled along evacuation routes. In a brief November ceasefire, UNRWA and UNICEF were able to restore some fuel and power supplies. A few desalination plants and wells were able to operate again, even if temporarily. Aid was unable to reach the plants in the north, though that would have been futile. The main EU-funded plant and an associated coastal well had been hit by airstrikes. The Gaza Central Wastewater Plant was another target, along with its solar field.

Satellite images obtained in the spring of 2024 provided an objective view of damage to general infrastructure of the whole of Gaza, including water treatment and supply facilities. These pictures confirmed the earlier estimations that more than half of all water supply and treatment facilities were damaged. By matching images to data registered with the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), all of Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants were identified as non-operational.

Damage to water facilities was not only limited to the northern end. Video evidence posted online, but hastily removed, showed Israeli ground troops rigging explosives to pumps at Canada Reservoir in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah. The three-million litre-capacity reservoir had previously served 150,000 inhabitants in southern Gaza. Large water storage tanks in Khan Younis were also wrecked. In the east of the city, a team of CMWU water engineers were killed while on their way to undertake repairs. Their car convoy had been clearly marked, and the work had been given prior clearance by Israeli authorities.

In the past, Oxfam had frequently highlighted bureaucratic challenges in obtaining Israeli permission to install and repair desalination units. In July 2024, it went a step further, with a report that directly accused the Israeli government of weaponising water. Attention was brought to an eight-month period in which the Mekorot capacity had been cut by 78 percent. The report also described how the IDF had destroyed CMWU’s primary water-quality testing laboratories in Gaza, and blocked Oxfam’s attempts to deliver their own testing equipment.

Emergence of infectious disease

The lack of water access, combined with poor sanitation and the convergence of most of the population in the south rang alarm bells among the medical community. Spikes in the incidence of diarrhoea and other intestinal disease were noted by healthcare workers working for Medecins San Frontieres, one of the first groups to raise concerns over the potential risk of cholera and polio outbreaks. In the summer of 2024, polio virus was isolated in sewage samples. It had been completely eradicated for 25 years up to that point.

It is almost impossible to avoid statistics when discussing infectious illness and malnutrition in Gaza. The Global Nutrition Cluster’s Nutrition Vulnerability and Situation Analysis indicated that within just a few months of the start of the war, 90% of children under five years of age had infectious disease. Nearly three-quarters had recent episodes of diarrhoea. Eight out of ten families lacked access to clean, safe water, which was a particular concern in households with babies reliant on it for reconstituted infant formula. Around 1 in 20 children attending health centres and in shelters were at a life-threatening stage of severe wasting, and a third of children under two years of age were acutely malnourished, double that of a few months earlier.

Childhood deaths related to malnutrition and dehydration as a result of blockade and displacement were now being reported. Spring and late summer saw some alleviation of food and water insecurity, as more convoys were able to cross the border and distribute supplies, but the peaks and troughs of aid distribution were erratic. One unwavering trend was the downward spiral in hydrational and nutritional health. Nearly 700,000 cases of infectious diarrhoea were recorded by the end of the first year of conflict.

A way ahead?

The future of those who have survived the conflict so far hangs in the balance. The whole humanitarian situation, let alone the water crisis, remains unresolved. Hypothesising where Gaza could go from here is complicated by Israel’s labelling of UNRWA as a terrorist organisation, Trump’s desire to demolish, rebuild and effectively own Gaza, foreign nations debating where and how to rehouse the civilian population, and who is going to pay for everything. Even all that depends on what Israel and Hamas’ intentions are for continuing the conflict. Whatever the final game plan, highly coordinated efforts will be required on all fronts.

One focus must be on re-establishing WASH, the core element of public health models which encompasses systems to ensure safe water, sanitation and hygiene. Each component is interlinked and necessary to minimise health risks. Before the current conflict, WASH initiatives included improvement of the aquifer water quality, desalination plant maintenance, delivering tanked or bottled water, the distribution of hygiene kits and education on water safety. With EU funding, UNICEF completed an extension to the Southern Gaza Seawater Desalination Plant, the largest of its kind on the Strip. Hospitals, schools and early childhood centres were prioritised for improvements to sanitary facilities. Education sessions were rolled out across schools and community areas to promote the importance of hygiene. Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) provided financial support over several years, allowing the NGO Anera to put in place over 50 diverse WASH programmes.

Many of these kinds of projects have had to be abandoned since October 2023. The rebirth of Gaza is likely to be more of a case of starting from scratch rather than picking up from where things left off. But of all the priorities, addressing the short- and long-term water crisis must be at the fore.

(Copyright 2025) E. Mark Windle is a freelance writer, with a former career as a clinical dietitian specialising in burn injury and critical care nutrition. He has also worked as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA). Full details of services and a portfolio of work is available at https://windlefreelance.com

The Hundred Year Hunger. Reflecting on a Work in Progress

The paradox is that the tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story—hard to understand and even harder to solve.

Ilan Pappé, On Palestine

E. Mark Windle    17 December 2024

When I started out on the current book project that maps the history of Gaza’s nutritional plight, it was obvious that capturing political context would be critical. Like so many other Middle Eastern regions over the centuries, Palestine has been shaped and reshaped by religious conflict, military invasion and occupation. Since the Bronze Age, the Canaanites, Israelites, Romans, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and the Ottoman Empire have all occupied Palestine directly, or wielded their power from afar.

That said, I see where Pappé is coming from. In my area of investigation, the episodes of food insecurity, malnutrition and famine experienced by Gazans have occurred at various points since the 1900s. But almost always, they have been the consequence of actions by an aggressor.

Why the 100-year timeline? Prior to the 1900s, Arab, Jewish, Bedouin and other communities in the Levant led fragile but self-sufficient existences, largely through subsistence farming. Large-scale enforced food insecurity has been a more recent phenomenon. To explore it, we have to consider latter-day Ottoman rule over Palestine in the early 20th century; the British mandate; Israel’s proclamation of independence; the Egyptian / United Arab Republic and Israeli occupation of Gaza; and the subsequent series of critical incidents that have perpetuated Jewish and Arab tensions. A perfect storm doesn’t quite describe the Palestinian struggle. Rather, a cumulative assault through political upheaval, war, and mass displacement followed by population containment.

The personal motivation to explore nutritional welfare in the Gaza Strip arose from my earlier background as an NHS dietitian. Much of my 25 years in the profession was spent as a specialist on an ICU and Regional Burns Unit in a West Yorkshire hospital. From the relative comfort of that First World clinical setting, I witnessed how an optimised nutritional status can improve recovery from surgery and trauma and survival from critical illness, when adequate medical resources, a skilled multidisciplinary team and advanced nutrition support technologies are at hand. The post-October 2023 Israeli offensive resonated, not only because of the brutal and protracted nature of violence being waged on the people of Gaza, but because they were already off to a poor start nutritionally. Yes, there has been long term input from international food aid agencies and medical organisations, but they are there for a reason. For decades now Gazans have endured a neglected healthcare infrastructure, and unpredictable levels of access to essentials including food and water, whether due to poverty, conflict or blockade.

Information-sifting for historical accuracy has proven to be a major challenge for this project so far. Unbiased attempts have been made to review data from Israeli, Palestinian and NGO sources regarding food supply, nutritional adequacy and malnutrition rates. Inevitably, low thresholds must be set for the suspicion of statistical massage, false information and half-truths when it comes to government and media reports. Even academic and scientific journals appear to play a part in propaganda-mongering. Publication bias—the selection of studies for print which support a particular editorial or institutional viewpoint, over those which don’t—is evident on both sides, and at various points in the timeline. None of this is unusual during political tensions. It is what it is, and only reinforces the need for diligence during the search for objectivity.

But on polarised viewpoints, consider the fact that Amnesty International, the International Criminal Court, the US Center for Constitutional Rights, South Africa and others view Israel’s actions over the last year as genocide. Meanwhile Israel continues with its mantra of a right to self-defence, and countries that supply its arms concur (to do anything else would admit complicity). The fact remains that over 45,000 people in Gaza have died in the latest conflict, with women and children contributing to over 70% of that figure. And while the decision over a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is still being dragged out, much of the surviving population in Gaza remains unable to access basic essentials, including food and water. Starvation and malnutrition may well now be the end game.

The book “The Hundred Year Hunger” by E. Mark Windle is scheduled for publication in June 2025.

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is a freelance writer, with a former career as a clinical dietitian specialising in burn injury and critical care nutrition. He has also worked as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA). Full portfolio of work is available at https://windlefreelance.com/portfolio

Troubling the Water: The Power of Song, from the Underground Railroad to Rhythm and Blues

Wade in the water
Wade in the water children
Wade in the water
God said He’s gonna trouble the water

We are the sons and the daughters
We gotta stand up and make it loud
Just like our God told the Pharaoh
Let my people go

We are a new generation
From the ones who have gone before
He’s calling us out of bondage
Let my pеople go

“Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds.” Frederick Douglass (1845).

E. Mark Windle 22 March 2024.

For over forty years now I’ve been immersed in a community that celebrates and explores Black music; placing emphasis on a history that remains largely unfamiliar to mainstream society. If there’s any common ground, it’s the assumption that the advent of jazz, R&B and soul represented a release from the constraints of the Church. Irony then, that Ramsey Lewis’ 1966 take on the spiritual Wade in the Water was among the first of countless vinyl record acquisitions as I set out on my journey of musical enlightenment. Wasn’t this stuff supposed to be all about the Devil’s music?

Don’t be fooled by the popular misconception that Black America has always had a strong connection with the Church. Much to the frustration of white antebellum society, the reality was that Christianity was a slow burner. It took at least a hundred years and multiple institutional influences before any significant religious transition was evident. Scholars suggest that even then, the attraction lay in the Old and New Testament tales of struggle, hope and freedom – themes that paralleled the African American plight.

There should also be no surprise that when this ‘new’ religion was ultimately embraced, bible teachings and prayer were heavily complemented by music and song. Of course, these elements had always been an integral part of ritual celebration and worship of spirits and gods back in the homeland. And pre-emancipation, countless original Christian spirituals were composed by enslaved communities, or existing hymns modified to speak to a different audience. Wade in the Water, one of the most recognisable of spirituals, was first recorded by the Sunset Four Jubilee Singers. At least a dozen other versions followed in what could be described as the golden age of Black gospel between 1925 and 1960. To date, well over 300 published versions of the song sit on the of register of BMI.

But let’s backtrack. Nashville’s Fisk Jubilee Singers were the first to rescue slave songs from obscurity. In the late 1800s, and with direct access to oral history from free and formerly enslaved individuals, the student choir built a repertoire of around 40 spirituals and work songs, including Wade in the Water. The purpose was to perform these across the US and overseas as a means of raising money for their financially struggling school. The upshot? Nashville got its Music City moniker from Queen Victoria (so the story goes), and its first historically Black university. Brothers John and Frederick Work brought things further into public consciousness in the early 20th century, when the lyrics appeared in New Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. If it wasn’t for the efforts of Fisk University, these spirituals may well not have been preserved in their original form, if at all.

Other than providing a means of religious expression, spirituals were associated with escape from slavery. Opportunities for escape from plantations and farms which followed Native American raids or spontaneous internal uprisings were invariably ill-fated. The Underground Railroad provided a much more organised option for flight, by employing coordinated systems of passage. The Appalachian Mountains offered indirect access to the northern free states and Canada. Mexico was a more logical destination for the enslaved on Texan or Louisiana soil. In any direction, journeys remained extremely perilous – especially for women and children, the weak and the elderly – but by the time of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, some 100,000 slaves sought passage through the Underground Railroad.

Part of its success was the use of code. ‘Passengers’ (escapees) rode the Underground Railroad under the instruction of guides, known as conductors. ‘Stations’ were safe places for rest between each run, taking the form of cellars, churches and rendezvous points in marshland or woods. For communication, the use of code within song was also key; folk songs and spirituals could regularly be heard by slave owners on the plantations and fields, so would give no cause to raise suspicion. Some biblical lyrics doubled as warnings to potential passengers. Others were instructions from guides or co-conspirators to prepare for flight: being “bound for the land of Canaan” referenced a flee attempt to Canada. In Sweet Chariot, “Swing low to carry me home” indicated the imminent use of escape routes to the south. Steal Away meant, well, just that. As far as Wade in the Water is concerned, the literal biblical narrative is the story of the Israelites crossing the River Jordan to enter the Promised Land. For Mama Moses, one of the Underground Railroad’s most notable conductors, it was also code for escapees to enter the streams and rivers, thereby minimising scent and diverting the slave hunter’s bloodhounds from the trail.

With the origins of Wade in the Water in slavery, and the uprising of the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, it was a given that there would be a cross-over to a secular setting. Call-and-response has a way of unifying people, whether for religious or political purposes. The Chambers Brothers frequently included Wade in the Water in their performances at music festivals and freedom marches. Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, gospel groups including Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, and The Pilgrim Travellers featuring Lou Rawls fuelled the cause with their versions. The Staple Singers secured its status as a song of solidarity with their take towards the end of the decade, as racial tensions were coming to a head in the urban areas of the North. Outside of the political arena, the musical transition of Wade in the Water to popular music featured folk, jazz, and R&B interpretations. Instrumental versions were popular, doubtless a hang-over from gospel church renditions, and the song was easily adapted for the organ. Ramsey Lewis’ infectious piano and horn-driven jazz / R&B version for the Chess label subsidiary, Cadet, took it to new heights. Political timeliness, shrewd marketing techniques and not least dancefloor appeal ensured it reached peak positions in the US R&B and pop charts and across Europe.

Marlena Shaw’s 1966 vocal version for the same record label was also popular at the time. Lyrical content was swapped from the spiritual narrative to one of an intense, seductive and stormy relationship. As Fiona McQuarrie noted in Shindig magazine, this wasn’t well received in some parts: “(The Ramsey Lewis version) inspired vocalist Marlena Shaw to adapt the song’s lyrics for her ‘66 single… an updating which, she said, was put down by the church people in the South who felt that some of the lyrics were a little risqué “. Two years later, Big Mama Thornton presented another alternative lyrical take – and a dramatic switch in tempo – on her rousing recording for Arhoolie, the Californian blues and R&B specialist label.

Thanks then to the unknown composer and the conductors of the Underground Railroad; to the Fisk Singers and the Work brothers of Nashville; and to the activists who adopted Wade in the Water as a civil rights anthem. Let’s not forget the record-buying public either. Perhaps the ultimate recognition of the song’s lasting significance is inclusion in Celebrating Fisk! The 150th Anniversary Album. The Fisk Jubilee Singers picked up the 2021 Best Roots Gospel Album Grammy Award for that one. Messages of hope and freedom from oppression clearly still resonate. Two centuries on, the enduring legacy of Wade in the Water is assured.

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has also worked on multiple book projects as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter with Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA).

Follow Mark at https://www.facebook.com/windlefreelance

Malnutrition and Mortality in Gaza, One Year Later. Who’s Counting the Dead?

E. Mark Windle 1 November 2024.

It’s a tragic sign of the times when little introductory narrative is needed to set the near-apocalyptic scene that exists in Gaza today. The world watches from a distance as Israel’s onslaught continues and the civilian death toll escalates to unimaginable levels. Now, the nightmare that Palestinian survivors are currently enduring is about to take on another dimension.

The prediction made one year ago of a man-made famine is about to be realised, though in truth, Gazans have suffered food insecurity for decades. Despite a heavy dependency on international agencies for humanitarian assistance, access to food and safe water supplies has repeatedly been denied due to blockades imposed by Israel. As is the trend in such crises, women and children are particularly affected by malnutrition. Anaemia and other manifestations of nutrient deficiency have led to adverse effects on maternal and foetal health. Miscarriage and birth defect rates are high. Suboptimal nutritional status also impairs immune function and the ability of mother and child to recover from disease.

This dire baseline has only amplified the number of civilian losses caused by violence. The proportion of deaths in Gaza attributed to trauma-related injury versus that from malnutrition is hard to define; in many cases, it’s part of the same story. Malnutrition significantly affects the ability to recover from internal injuries, limb loss, and surgery, thereby increasing the risk of infection, sepsis and death.

Obtaining accurate quantitative information on injury, disease and deaths is essential. It draws global attention, and allows humanitarian organisations to focus their resources. The tricky bit of course is that over- or under-inflation of rates can occur for political gain. Regardless, even Israeli officials admit that the Palestinian Ministry of Health are the only governmental body actively collating decent morbidity and mortality data. There are pro-Israel lobbyists who are still quick to dismiss those figures, citing that a third of the 38,000 deaths declared earlier this summer were unverifiable. However, the reality of real-time assessment in this war zone is that many of the dead are still buried under rubble. Formal ID is impossible: collected statistics unavoidably include household losses reported by family members. Any remaining deniers of data coming out of Gaza should consider satellite image analysis performed by the City University of New York and Oregon State University. Almost 100,000 buildings had been destroyed in the first two months of the current crisis, most of which were in densely populated residential areas. The World Health Organisation and United Nations have also found mortality rates quoted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to be reliable during earlier critical periods in Gaza’s history.

Malnutrition prevalence from (neutral) aid agency field and clinic data also paints a progressively disturbing picture. In March, nutrition monitoring by UNICEF and others highlighted that around 1 in 20 children attending health centres and in shelters were at a life-threatening stage of severe wasting. In addition, over 30 percent of children under 2 years of age were classified as acutely malnourished; double that of three months earlier. By June, major nutritional concerns were no longer primarily restricted to the north. Almost 3,000 children in southern Gaza were in need of intervention to manage the effects of moderate to severe malnutrition, yet were prevented from attending clinics due to ongoing conflict. Spring and late summer saw some alleviation of food insecurity, as more convoys were able to cross the border and distribute supplies. Then September marked the month with the lowest cross-border transfer and distribution of food and bottled water.

The UN continues to monitor the situation closely. Is Gaza now ‘officially’ in famine? To meet the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) definition, at least 20 percent of the population should have significant lack of access to food; acute malnutrition prevalence should be at least 30 percent; and mortality should be at or above 2 deaths per 10,000 people daily. At the time of writing, forty-three thousand are dead. The vast majority of the surviving population are now displaced, and one in five are facing “catastrophic levels of denied access to nutrition” (another IPC classification). Three-quarters of all crop fields have been destroyed. Access to food and safe water supplies, medical care and the availability of proper sanitation continues to be impossible in most situations. As the UN have stressed, Gaza sits on the very brink of famine. Without an immediate ceasefire, this will be a forgone conclusion.

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is a freelance writer, with a former 25-year career as a clinical dietitian specialising in burn injury and critical care nutrition. He has also worked as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA).

Follow Mark at https://www.facebook.com/windlefreelance

October Book Release: In Other Words. Commentaries on Writing Craft, Life and Music

E. Mark Windle 4 October 2024.

In Other Words. Commentaries on Writing Craft, Life and Music is a collection of short articles, opinion pieces, and industry press releases originally published in print and online between 2021 and 2024.

The aim of this project is to present a sample of works on a variety of themes that fall outside of my usual book writing activities, but which should appeal to readers with similar interests as mine. Some pieces were published while the world was in the midst of dealing with a global pandemic and war. Covid, or rather the political mishandling of it, is addressed here. As is the ongoing crisis in Gaza. A year ago, at the beginning of the latest escalation in conflict, I highlighted concern over the development of a man-made famine in Gaza. Tragically, that has now been realised.

Lighter themes are also represented. ‘Writing about writing’ is a natural peripheral activity for authors. My motivation to do so comes from the frustration shared with other freelance ghostwriters: non-disclosure agreements and living in the shadows are major barriers to providing prospective clients with full resumes. Having the opportunity to reflect on the profession and provide a little guidance from personal experience provides some relief in that regard. Ghostwriting is only one element of the day job though. Self-publishing, non-fiction commissions and indie book selling present their own unique challenges, and none of these themes escape comment.

Inevitably, music also features, given that soul music has pretty much been a life-long passion of mine. Interest in exploring the history that surrounds it started, oddly enough, with a former 25-year career in health care. After producing a number of clinical papers and a commission from the British Dietetic Association to write part of their core reference book, I was hooked on scientific inquiry. By extension, that notion of objective curiosity and systematic research skills obtained along the way proved invaluable when applied to uncovering and documenting US music history. Relevant projects presented in this latest book include articles written for the soul music community, as well as biographies, press releases and liner notes for the record industry.

In Other Words. Commentaries on Writing Craft, Life and Music is available to order via A Nickel And a Nail, at https://a-nickel-and-a-nail.myshopify.com/collections/books/products/in-other-words-commentaries-on-writing-craft-life-and-music-e-mark-windle

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is a freelance writer and biographer. He has also worked as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA).

Follow Mark at https://www.facebook.com/windlefreelance

Maurice Williams, R&B Vocal Group Frontman, Passes

E. Mark Windle 6 August 2024.

The passing of Maurice Williams, frontman for the R&B vocal group Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, has just been confirmed by North Carolina sources.

Williams was originally from Lancaster, SC. His group involvement was a long one, commencing with the Royal Charms in the early fifties, then the Junior Harmonizers and the Gladiolas. The Gladiolas hit pay dirt in 1957 with “Little Darlin’ ” for Excello. An important milestone for Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs was “Stay”, released in 1960 on Al Silver’s New York Herald Records. “Stay” went straight to #1, was a huge early beach music hit and is now an established doo-wop classic, and has since been covered by The Four Seasons, Jackson Browne and others. Decades later the original was given a further lease of life via the Dirty Dancing movie soundtrack. Another couple of Herald releases followed in the early sixties with variable degrees of success, until “May I” became their second local radio and beach hit. The Zodiacs also released two LPs in the sixties, namely “Stay” on Herald in 1960/61, and a live LP recorded at Myrtle Beach in 1965.

Marshall Sehorn was a student at North Carolina State University before working for Bobby Robinson as the southern promotion man for Fire and Fury labels from the late 1950s onwards.  When these labels folded Sehorn and partner Allen Toussaint founded the Sansu, Deesu and Tou-Sea labels and the Sea-Saint Recording Studios in New Orleans, between 1963 and 1966. Sehorn and Toussaint released Williams on their Deesu label, producing a few fine northern soul winners in the mid sixties with the group and as a solo artist; “Being Without You” (Deesu 302), “Don’t Ever Leave Me” (Deesu 309) and “How to Pick a Winner” (Deesu 311). Another soul track on yet another related label from around this time was “Return” (Sea-horn 503), a sparse recording sounding much earlier than its release date (circa 1964). Gladys Knight and the Pips reportedly appeared on backing. The flip, “My Baby’s Gone”, is a dramatic beat ballad and an admirable demonstration of Williams’ vocal quality. A later release, given the big city soul production treatment, was “Nobody Knows” on Scepter (SCE 12113), yet another Sehorn production. A second track destined for a Scepter release, but one which never actually materialised, was the mid tempo “Look My Way”. Nat Speir, co-founder of The Rivieras, remembers playing baritone sax on this one, recorded at Arthur Smith’s Studios in Charlotte in 1966 or 1967. “Look my way” eventually surfaced in the UK more than 20 years later via the various artists compilation LP “Soul Cities” (Kent 089) and on the Kent CD “Living the Nightlife” (CDKEND 104).

Nat Speir described his musical involvement with Maurice Williams:

“Maurice and his group covered the typical territory of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida and parts of Kentucky. I played baritone sax and guitar with the Zodiacs in the early to mid sixties, and did some sessions with Maurice in Charlotte and New York. He and I got together a number of times to write some songs, though I don’t think anything came of that. My friend (Bob Meyer) and I worked on the side with the Zodiacs. We went with Maurice to New York to record possible follow-ups for “Stay”. Bob sang three songs written by Maurice, and I played sax. Recording in New York at Beltone Studios, in the same room in which Ray Charles, The Drifters and many others recorded, was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill for a 17-year-old white boy. We rehearsed above Small’s Paradise in Harlem, and rubbed elbows with the likes of Gladys Knight and King Curtis. Horace Ott was to be the arranger, and Jimi Hendrix was the rhythm guitarist, added to beef-up the bass. He was an unknown at that time. One never knows about these things, but nothing came of all this work.”

Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs continued to perform on the beach music oldies circuit throughout the seventies and eighties, while living in Charlotte, NC. On the back of the popularity of Dirty Dancing (which provided another eight million in sales of “Stay”) he remained active touring the south east states, and had a number of appearances on Pittsburg PBS TV specials.

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has also worked on multiple book projects as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter with Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA).

Juke Joint

E. Mark Windle 25 February 2024.

“We had to ask the owner of Abe’s BBQ in Clarksdale how to get there. His hand-written directions on the back of a napkin was our GPS for this shack at the edge of a cornfield. Don’t expect signs to point you there. Heck, don’t even expect signs with road names. It opens around eight and gets going at about nine or ten. There was a $5 cover charge. Give the lady at the door a $20 and tell her to keep it. It will be worth double that. The place is a tiny two room shack that has a ceiling so low in the middle that you have to bend down to get from one side to the other. If it is hot outside, it will be hot inside Po’ Monkey’s. The tables are covered in sticky shelf liner that is peeling. The chairs range from school cafeteria rejects to bench seats from an old pickup truck. A whole army of stuffed and dusty monkeys intertwined with Christmas lights cover the ceiling. This isn’t meant to be retro cool decor. This is years of careful collecting by Po’ Monkey himself. Mr. Seaberry made us feel more welcome than we have ever felt any place in my life. It felt like he was sincerely glad we came. We stayed for hours and loved every minute of it.”

TB, North Carolina. Trip Advisor (Summer, 2016).

When he shuffled off this mortal coil in 2016, the blues world mourned. Po’ Monkey wasn’t a musician, or a singer, though he loved the blues. And he didn’t go out of his way to make himself—or his shack—an international name, let alone a local one. It kind of just happened that way. Po’ Monkey, alias Willie Seaberry, was a simple country guy who loved the concept of family in its broadest sense and making sure y’all had a good time. It didn’t matter if you were Black, or white, or any colour for that matter. Po’ Monkey had seen and entertained them all, and he was just glad you came by. But now with Bolivar County’s iconic figure gone, it was the end of an era in this part of the delta, and another nail in the coffin for the juke joint as an authentic institution.

*

OK, so they do still exist, at least in a fashion. Urban juke joints were a thing for a while, appearing in places like St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago after the Black Migration headed north up the Mississippi and its tributaries. But eventually those establishments disappeared. Same thing happened on the east coast. Today there are still reminders in the big cities of the importance of juke joints as social hubs. Consider the House of Blues, modelled loosely on the Hard Rock Café concept. These are highly commercialised chains of course. Homage is paid to Deep South history but with all the modern comforts, slick merchandising and air conditioning expected by its patrons. No three-dollar beers to be found here.

Meanwhile back on the Mississippi Delta, there are still a few juke joints left, dotted around for music enthusiasts and Blues Trail road trippers to discover, but be quick as they won’t be here forever. Each joint has, or did have, their own unique charm; the Blue Front Café in Bentonia is one survivor that has been operating since the 1940s, and remains a favourite with road trippers who like their experiences a bit off the beaten track. Po’ Monkey’s had a particular local and historical significance though. Even when word got out and it was in danger of becoming overrun by tourists, the little country shack lost none of its rustic simplicity, or its soul. That was the core of its appeal.

The origins of the juke joint go back as you’d care to explore. These informal establishments of social necessity provided a welcome respite to the searing heat, sweat and humidity of the day. They were essentially an extension of the one-room jookhouse dwellings, where field workers and sharecroppers could wind down after a hard day in the rice and cotton fields. Going back further to the days of slavery and early emancipation, plantation community rooms and barrelhouses of farms performed a similar function. The provision of these facilities were less an expression of the slavemasters’ or employers’ concern for the social welfare of their workers, than a way to make sure that everybody was accounted for and present on site. When the 20th century arrived, the juke joint served as a Jim Crow-free shelter for drinking, gambling and dancing. It was also here in the Delta where the blues was born of course, with the likes of Robert Johnson, Son House and other great early musicians and singers cutting their teeth in these dens of iniquity.

Po’ Monkey’s place sat in an isolated position on the edge of a flat cornfield, at least a mile from the nearest town of Merigold, population 379. Originally this was Choctaw land before it was appropriated by white farmers. Bolivar County records indicate that just under 1000 people lived here in 1840, featuring a high ratio of Blacks to whites—and only one freed Black man. Twenty years later, around 90% of the population had been assigned to one of the 47 slave owners in the county. Post emancipation, sharecroppers settled in the area, working the same fields they or their ancestors had done during captivity.

Po’ Monkey’s shack was originally a one-room sharecropper’s dwelling, possibly built in the 1920s, before some minimal extensions were added. The wooden panelled construction was propped on stilts, and consisted of a short stoop, tin roof, and corrugated sheet skirting to keep vermin out. Signs on the outside walls had a double purpose: to congratulate visitors on their success of actually being able to find the place, and to provide a few clear ground rules from management:

Welcome to the Poor Monkey Lounge…

No beer brought inside

No rap music

No drugs… by order of Poor Monkey

As to be expected, the inside was open-plan and cramped. Still, divisions and alcoves managed to house a pool table, some chequered cloth-covered tables, and a juke box (later replaced by a DJ stereo system). Walls were adorned with yet more posters, old photographs and other ephemera. Stuffed monkey toys and Christmas lights were suspended from the ceiling. The fans hung so low that you were in danger of being decapitated. The dim lighting and randomness only added to the atmosphere, providing endless sources of curiosity for first timers.

Mr Po’ Monkey was as much a part of the juke joint’s experience as the place itself. Willie Seaberry had been a farmer for the Hiter family for more than fifty years, and the shack had been handed to him in 1961 by them to occupy on a lifetime lease basis. Within a couple of years he had the notion of opening it up as a juke joint after he came back from a day of working in the fields, something which continued until his final days. Other than for facilitating private events, Po’ Monkey’s only opened once a week to the public. After all it was his home. But Thursday night was Blues Night, and that’s when the place really came alive. Without fail the shack was rammed, with partying continuing well into the small hours. By the early 1980s, blues music may have been in danger of becoming a forgotten genre by the American mainstream – but not in these parts, as locals will attest. Po’ Monkey had a passion for the Delta blues, and made sure it was always in the ether, whether playing on the juke box, provided by a live band, or by a DJ. The 1990s had brought about a renaissance in the blues, partly stoked by a long-running underground interest in Europe and Japan, and with book authors, newspaper columnists and CNN documenting the tough but nostalgic times of the African American South. Before long, nearby Delta State University students, blues fans, and international tourists were making the pilgrimage to the tiny shack beyond the bayou to check it out for some old-time music, booze and fun.

Willie Seaberry was a genuine bearer of the come as a stranger, leave as a friend adage. The dutiful host could always be found going around each table, checking in on his guests to make sure they had a warm welcome and a beer in their hands, dancing with ALL the ladies, and disappearing periodically to reappear each time with a different suit on. Nobody really knew what the quick-change thing was all about, but it would always be an integral part the evening’s activities.

Po’ Monkey wasn’t really in it for the money. At least it wasn’t what drove him to open up every week. He made a little on the $5 cover, but hardly anything on the alcohol he’d bought in bulk from the grocery store in Merigold. His guests were like family, and this was his social time as much as anyone else’s.

After everyone had had their fun and stumbled out into the pitch black Mississippi night to try and find their way home, he’d retire alone. The bedroom, not much bigger than the bedstead itself, was located in another corner of the shack; the walls lined with suits and hats on hangers, and junk scattered on the floor. There was only space for one piece of furniture – a dilapidated paint-flaked green dressing table, probably as old as Po’ Monkey himself.

*

Over time, the expectations of the modern cultural tourist were changing. Folks were now after everything on a plate. The fun, blues, beer, and tamales sold from a cart out front were always appreciated, but a few complaints were also broadcasted online, usually over the lack of plumbing and hygiene (…the rest room is grim. Bring your own hand sanitizer… The toilet paper has to go in the waste bin…), overcrowding (though didn’t that used to be called atmosphere?), and the fact that the shack generally felt like a death trap. Thankfully Willie didn’t care much for social media. Besides, this was his home.

Old Willie Seaberry was found dead in his bedroom on Thursday July 14, 2016. Nobody, not even the coroner, knew the exact story, though it sounds like he just died of a heart attack. Willie had been spotted going about his usual business earlier in the week. His body was only discovered when someone checked in on him to see if he was opening up as usual for Blues night.

With Po’ Monkey no more, the vibrant social hub for locals and visitors to Bolivar County disappeared overnight. Every few months or so a journalist might come by Merigold enquire about the shack, trying to gauge what the Hiters’ long term intentions might be. There was hope held by many for some kind of preservation to honour Willie Seaberry. The farm owner initially seemed interested in maintaining Po’ Monkey’s as an iconic piece of Americana. But year on year, for whatever reason, nothing was happening, and the shack was left to rot. It’s still standing, though only just. Occasionally, passing tourists turn off Highway 61 and take the dirt road to have one last look at Po’ Monkey’s, reminisce about the old days and maybe take a couple of photos to post on Facebook. But the field’s quiet now. The posters, stuffed monkeys, Christmas lights and the old sound system were auctioned off a long time ago. The outside signs have all gone too. Only the old Blues Trail marker on the post out front provides a reminder that this pile of wood and metal once meant something to a lot of folks, and for a long time.

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has also worked on multiple book projects as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter with Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA).

Follow Mark at https://www.facebook.com/windlefreelance

A Toast to Childhood, Spielberg, and Spanish Ladies

E. Mark Windle     15 February 2024.

Reflecting on Jaws, the iconic movie that defined an era. Its literary inspiration, why today’s kids don’t get it, and what they are missing.

Society has a habit of compartmentalising history. It occurs all the time where the arts are concerned. Some creative masterpieces maintain permanent legendary status, while changes in societal norms and the general passage of time erode the relative importance of others.

Movies suffer this fate, though admittedly Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws is a bit of an anomaly. Film critics continue to applaud the film as an industry milestone. In the eyes of so many 50- and 60-somethings, its godly status has never been questioned. On the other hand, our younger generations struggle to comprehend the appeal. Maybe it’s something to do with contemporary relevance (what? Horror movies are no longer in vogue?). Or the awful sequels. Or perhaps the disinterest is a reflection of our now technologically advanced society. I honestly can’t remember what my thoughts were of Bruce the Rubber Shark back in the mid-seventies, but it clearly didn’t matter. Jaws scared the bejesus out of me and my pals: a giddy rollercoaster of anticipation, tension, and shock. The film may be a dead dog to most millennials, Gen Zs and probably Gen Alphas if they ever get around to checking it out, but we must forgive their inability to empathise with the oldies.

I’m a non-fiction writer by trade. My failing—as my family constantly remind me—is that I don’t read enough fiction. I’m inclined to agree, but the day job just gets in the way. Too much of my time is spent dipping into books on civil rights, history, culture or being immersed in online research. Admittedly I prefer my fiction on the big screen, though I did love reading it as a kid. At one point Saturday mornings routinely consisted of Mum dragging me along with her for the weekly shop, invariably including a visit to Woolworths. While Mum disappeared off to the clothes and household goods aisles, I’d head for the bookracks. It was here where I came across a copy of Peter Benchley’s book, actually the one before the movie adaptation. To this day my mother still loves telling everyone that I’d read little chunks, then stash the book at the back of the shelf with the page corner folded, ready for my return the following week.

Jaws was Peter Benchley’s first novel. The project was a real slow burner, until his motivation to complete it was sparked by the threat of having to return a $1000 advance. Doubleday Publishing released the book with a to-the-wire decision on the title (Jaws being the only one that came to mind some 20 minutes before it went to press). Critics knocked it for its lightness, unlikeable characters and dubious subplots. All that would be was water off a duck’s back though—Benchley and his publisher knew they were onto a good thing when Jaws spent much of 1974 on the New York Times bestseller list. US book sales hit the stratosphere, and Steven Spielberg and his producers ordered 100 copies to share with film industry acquaintances. By the time the movie appeared the following year and with co-promotion of the book (now with character and plot tweaks), around 20 million copies of the book were sold worldwide.

That book and the film cemented my childhood interest in all things shark. If you needed to know about different species, where they could be found in the world, statistics on countries with the most attacks and annual percentage fatalities, I was your go-to kid. Seriously, lots of us were at it. Its often said that Jaws demonised sharks, and I do get that to an extent. The juxtaposition is that the movie also inspired many to study these magnificent creatures, and in the long term created an awareness that we need to protect them. I didn’t exactly end up an oceanographer or marine biologist, but I did mop up a ton of stuff about biology, ecology and ichthyology. Indirectly, it probably even informed my decision to take up a 25-year science-based career before switching to writing full time.

Fast-forward 35 years. The Windles are on a family holiday in St. Pete’s in Tampa Bay, Florida. After the obligatory aquarium visit on the pier, we move on for some dolphin spotting in the coastal inlet. It’s early season and as we’re the only tourists on the boat hire, there’s plenty of time for leisurely chat with Alan, our friendly captain. Turns out Al’s family emigrated to the US from the UK when he was a small boy. In between his assistant’s calls for the dolphins to come alongside the boat (“Come on baby! Come on baby!”), Al also reminds us that St Pete’s Bay is a major breeding ground for hammerheads. As a naïve young scouser in a new land and unused to the searing summer heat of the South, little Al wouldn’t think twice about jumping in the bay with his pals to cool off. That all stopped in the summer of ‘75 of course. He’s not been in since.

So, what exactly is the magic hold that Jaws has on us? Pigeon-holing it as a movie is tricky. I guess that’s part of the appeal though: it’s a thriller, a psychological drama and ultimately a horror film (the midnight-skinny-dipping-goes-wrong opening scene is hard to beat, no?). Its instant nostalgia-conjuring ability is another reason why it still resonates with my age group. Not just a yearning for a return to flares, skinny tees and hot summers though, or even to a time of childhood innocence. Quite the opposite. Jaws was the first coming-of-age movie for my generation, revealing that life isn’t always so rosy. You never know what’s lurking 50 yards away in the water while you’re messing around on the beach or your mother is picking burnt skin off your shoulders.

Then there’s the cinematography and direction. Jaws is a truly visual feast.  It doesn’t really matter that it was shot in Martha’s Vineyard (where the water was shallow enough to operate Bruce) rather than Montauk, the original inspiration for Benchley’s Amity Island. The picturesque settings, including the golden sands and white and coloured wood-siding houses of Massachusetts’s pretty coastal hamlets, along with John Williams’ iconic film score, was perfect. Spielberg didn’t miss a trick with character diversity either, even if their storylines deviated from the original book. I seem to recall from my Saturday sessions in Woolies that Matt Hooper the marine biologist was less innocent than the amiable portrayal by Richard Dreyfuss. Benchley’s Hooper took a shine to the police chief’s wife, Ellen Brody. They even had an affair in a dodgy motel. But in the movie, we do have Martin Brody, the world-weary small-town cop who cares about his community, and Larry Vaughan, the jerk of a mayor determined to keep the beaches open at all costs.

Most Jaws lovers have their favourite character. Mine is Robert Shaw’s Quint, the drunken modern-day Captain Ahab (after all, Jaws is Moby Dick). Benchley claimed Quint was based on a charter fisherman he once met in Montauk named Frank Mundus. The similarities were certainly there; Mundus was an eccentric, occasionally lovable rogue, and his early practices were not at all shark friendly. For balance, he once assisted in the rescue of guests from a party boat which had capsized in treacherous conditions. Mundus was one of those responsible for bringing the survivors and the dead back to shore. He was hardly a saint though. Neither was Quint.

Quint leads one of the most memorable scenes where he, Brody and Hooper are getting drunk on board the Orca as night-time descends. This is the calm before the storm. The open water is dark and still, as Quint starts the tragic and largely true account of the USS Indianapolis, which was torpedoed in the Philippines during World War II. Nine hundred men jumped in the water to avoid going down with the ship, but rescue was delayed as the boat had been on a secret mission to carry components of the atom bomb that was about to be dropped on Hiroshima. Due to security reasons the ship’s exact location was kept quiet, even to the US Navy. For four days and nights the crew were subjected to dehydration, sun exposure, hypothermia, and relentless attacks by oceanic whitetips and tiger sharks. Quint’s tale has a sobering effect as all three men are left to reflect on the horrific events. He then attempts to lighten the atmosphere with rowdy renditions of Spanish Ladies and Show Me the Way to Go Home… Then THUD! The great white smashes into the hull, returning for another bite and the terror resumes. Pure genius.

Fifty years on, the appeal of Jaws goes beyond mere nostalgia. I reckon its status as one of the greatest movies of all time is assured, at least for people of a certain age. At the next late night re-run, you’ll find me there on the sofa with beer and a bucket of popcorn. Now where’s that remote control…

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has also written for Story Terrace (London, UK) as a senior writer, and with Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA) as a ghostwriter.

Follow Mark at https://www.facebook.com/windlefreelance

Big Man Records: The Embers “First Time” b/w “I Wanna Be” (New Vinyl 45rpm Release)

E. Mark Windle 19 December 2023.

Without pausing for breath after Big Man Records’ December launch of “Just Crazy ‘Bout You Baby” (b/w “Aware of Love”), the news is that a second quality double-sider from The Embers is lined up for release early in the new year.

Starting out as a doo-wop and rock ‘n’ roll outfit under another name, the group that would become known as The Embers was originally formed by Raleigh, North Carolina high school pals Bobby Tomlinson and Jackie Gore. Since 1958, The Embers have remained an active force within the beach music scene of southeast USA. Inevitably, the group has undergone a number of changes in personnel and musical direction over the years. But for many fans, their 1960s output is of particular interest, representing a time when a number of high quality soul covers and original songs were recorded. With Bobby as the drummer and Jackie on guitar and vocals, they would be the mainstays during this period, though at various points other members included Blair Ellis, Dave Norket, Durwood Martin, Rick Whitfield, and Mark Hammer on keyboards; Doug Harrison, Frank Reich and Don Holloway on sax; Johnny Hopkins on trumpet; and John Thompson on bass and vocals.

Early performances revolved around repeat bookings at frat parties (largely down to Blair Ellis’ status as a Kappa Sigma brother at NC State University), where they would be hired for $75 per show. Recognising their long-term potential, family financial investment enabled the transformation of an old Raleigh warehouse into The Embers Club, a live music venue where the boys could sit in as the resident band. As Winston-Salem’s life-long Embers fan Bob McNair recalls: “I would take dates there back in the sixties. We were underage according to the door policy, but as long as you were well dressed, came with a girl and paid the cover charge, they weren’t too concerned.” Here, and at later locations, The Embers honed their skills alongside soul and R&B stars of the day including Jackie Wilson, Little Anthony, Billy Stewart, Fats Domino, The Drifters and The Clovers.

Jimmy Capps Productions (JCP) was the concept of Jimmy Capps, a WTPF radio broadcaster and DJ who was looking for a platform to promote local bands. Along with his radio station engineer Larry Gardner, a studio was constructed in the basement of an old movie theatre. The Embers would start recording 45s with a group soul flavour for JCP, including “First Time”, co-written by Jackie Gore and released in 1966. There was no regional breakout for this one, though some 20 years later the recording was popularised on the UK rare soul scene by DJ Guy Hennigan, initially under its cover-up artist title of Mill Evans and the Esquires.

“First Time” features on this Big Man Records release along with its original JCP flipside. “I Wanna Be (Your Everything)” is a take on The Manhattans’ hit for Joe Evans’ Carnival label, which had peaked at #12 in the US R&B Charts the previous year. Two covers of the song were released by JCP – the version by The Entertainers was artistically similar, though to these ears The Embers have the edge vocally and on overall production.

The Embers would continue through the 1960s and beyond with a string of other local and national label releases. Many are now established favourites on the UK and European rare soul scenes, including “Crazy ‘Bout You Baby” and “Aware of Love” (both featured on Big Man Records 1017), “What Did I Do Wrong” (Atlantic), and “Watch Out Girl” (MGM). Meanwhile, the group’s significant contribution to beach music in the US has been recognised via multiple accolades at the annual Carolina Beach Music Awards, and induction into the South Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame and the South Carolina Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.

The Embers’ “First Time” b/w “I Wanna Be (Your Everything)” (BMR 1018) is available to pre-order from Big Man Records via bicknellmark@aol.com or bigmanrecords1@gmail.com .

(Copyright 2023) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has previously worked with Story Terrace (London, UK) as a senior writer, and with Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA) as a ghostwriter. To discuss services for hire please contact Mark at https://windlefreelance.com/contact/