Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Almanacs “Bess Hawes, Prominent Musician-Folklorist, Dies - POLLSTAR” plus 4 more

Almanacs “Bess Hawes, Prominent Musician-Folklorist, Dies - POLLSTAR” plus 4 more

Bess Hawes, Prominent Musician-Folklorist, Dies - POLLSTAR

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 06:03 AM PST

Hawes, who moved to Portland, Ore., from Los Angeles two years ago, died there Friday of natural causes, according to her daughter, Corey Denos of Bellingham, Wash.

Hawes, who was the daughter of legendary folk musicologist John Lomax, grew up helping her father collect and transcribe field recordings of folk musicians for the Library of Congress in the 1920s and '30s.

In the 1940s, she had joined Guthrie, Seeger, her husband, Butch Hawes, and others in a popular, if loose-knit, folk group called the Almanac Singers that Seeger has since joked never bothered to rehearse until it got onstage. Her brother, musicologist Alan Lomax, had made some of Guthrie's earliest recordings.

In a 2002 interview, Hawes recalled bumping into Seeger one day in New York City. She had just graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and was working as a librarian.

"He told me he formed this little music group and would I like to be in it," she said.

In the Almanac Singers, Hawes and the others collaborated on numerous songs, never crediting them to any one writer.

"As a group, they wrote a lot of songs, usually in support of union movements," Denos said.

In the late 1940s, Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner co-wrote "M.T.A.," a whimsical, banjo-driven tale of a harried commuter named Charlie who gets on a Boston subway, learns he doesn't have the proper fare and is never allowed to get off. Often called "Charlie and the M.T.A.," it became a hit for the Kingston Trio a decade later.

Hawes, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles with her husband in the 1950s, settling into what was then a bohemian community in Topanga Canyon.

She later joined the faculty at California State University, Northridge, which honored her with a Phenomenal Woman Award in 2004. In the 1960s and '70s, as a professor in the anthropology department, she made several documentary films exploring American music and folklore.

She also taught banjo, guitar and mandolin.

She moved to Washington in the mid-1970s, where she was director of the National Endowment of the Arts' folk arts program until retiring in 1992. Then-President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

Besides her daughter, Hawes is survived by two other children, daughter Naomi Bishop and son Nicholas Hawes, both of Portland, Ore., and six grandchildren.

Denos said a private family service is planned next week, with public services expected later.

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Global Markets Back on Track - Briefing.com

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 05:48 AM PST

Global Markets Back on Track


Stock markets around the globe have bounced back strongly Tuesday as the shock of Dubai World's debt problems has eased with news the conglomerate is working on a major debt restructuring. 

The U.S. stock market for its part is indicated to start the session with a gain of about 0.8%. 

Notably, most major, foreign markets logged gains of at least 1.5%, so it remains to be seen if the U.S. market shifts into a higher gear as the day progresses or if it follows a less scenic road to smaller gains and/or losses.

Today's economic data will play a part in dictating the trading outcome. 

The ISM Index (consensus 55.0; prior 55.7), in particular, will be a focal point.  It is a gauge of national manufacturing conditions that will be released at 10:00 ET. 

The ISM Index follows on the heels of a stronger-than-expected Chicago PMI reading Monday and a reassuring manufacturing report out of China that reportedly helped spark Tuesday's gains in global markets.

Construction Spending (consensus -0.5%; prior +0.8%) and Pending Home Sales (consensus -1.0%; prior +6.1%) data will also be released at 10:00 ET.  November vehicle sales will be published throughout the day.

Elsewhere, the Reserve Bank of Australia raised its key lending rate for the third time in three months while the Bank of Japan followed a different path, saying it intends to provide more liquidity with a new facility to lend about $116 billion in three-month funds at the 0.1% policy rate. 

The former central bank is clearly working to stem inflationary forces while the latter is working to fight deflationary forces.  Either way, carry-trade players can't be too disappointed with these developments.

On a related note, the Dollar Index is down 0.3%.  The weakness there is expected to breathe some life into the commodities markets as well as the stock market in early action.

Look for seasonal activity to help things along, too.  Although November ended on a skittish note, traders are cognizant that December has been a very good month historically for the stock market. 

According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, December has produced an average gain of 1.7% for the S&P 500 since 1950.

--Patrick J. O'Hare, Briefing.com

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Bess Hawes, prominent folklorist, dies at 88 - MSNBC

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 06:17 AM PST

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LOS ANGELES - Bess Lomax Hawes, who sang with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, co-wrote the Kingston Trio hit "M.T.A." and spent a lifetime documenting American folklore in recordings and films, has died at age 88, her family said Monday. Hawes, who ...

The Almanac - Dec. 1 - Post Chronicle

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 04:37 AM PST

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 1, the 335th day of 2009 with 30 to follow.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Mars, Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include waxworks museum founder Marie Tussaud in 1761; detective novelist Rex Stout in 1886; former United Mine Workers president W.A. "Tony" Boyle in 1904; singer/actress Mary Martin in 1913; comedian/filmmaker Woody Allen in 1935 (age 74); soul singer Lou Rawls in 1933; pro golfer Lee Trevino in 1939 (age 70); comedian Richard Pryor in 1940; singer/actress Bette Midler in 1945 (age 64); actor Treat Williams in 1951 (age 58); and model Carol Alt in 1960 (age 49).

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On this date in history:

In 1891, the game of basketball was invented when James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., put peach baskets at the opposite ends of the gym and gave students soccer balls to toss into them.

In 1903, the world's first drive-in gasoline station opened for business in Pittsburgh.

In 1917, the Rev. Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town near Omaha.

In 1943, ending a "Big Three" meeting in Tehran, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Russian Premier Josef Stalin pledged a concerted effort to defeat Nazi Germany.

In 1953, the first Playboy magazine was published. Marilyn Monroe was on the cover.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus, signaling, along with its resulting bus boycott and related events, the birth of the modern civil rights movement.

In 1989, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II met in the Vatican City. Afterward, they announced an agreement to establish diplomatic ties and Gorbachev renounced more than 70 years of oppression of religion in the Soviet Union.

In 1990, Iraq agreed to U.S. President George H.W. Bush's call for diplomatic missions to seek a solution to the Gulf crisis but insisted the Arab-Israeli dispute be a part of any bargain.

In 1991, voters in Soviet republic of Ukraine overwhelmingly voted for independence.

In 1996, an oil tanker sunk by the Japanese in 1941 was located off the California coast with its cargo intact.

In 2000, with the presidential election still undecided, Democrats and Republicans wound up with a 50-50 split in the Senate.

In 2001, as the United States and Israel pressured Yasser Arafat to crack down on Palestinian terrorist attacks, three suicide bombers struck Israelis the first two days of December, killing 29 people.

In 2003, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president detained in The Hague on war crimes charges, said he would return to Serbian politics on the Dec. 28 legislative ballot.

In 2004, one dozen people were reported dead in a prison riot and shootouts in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In 2005, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee and a military veteran, said the war in Iraq had left the U.S. Army "broken, worn out" and "living hand-to-mouth."

Also in 2005, same-sex marriage became legal in South Africa when the country's Constitutional Court ruled that laws banning it were unconstitutional.

In 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush proclaimed Dec. 1 World AIDS Day and urged all Americans to join in the fight against the disease.

Also in 2006, the British government decided on a near total indoor public smoking ban in England. Only private homes and hotel rooms were exempt.

In 2007, a methane gas explosion injured 52 miners at the underground Ukraine coal mine where 101 miners died in a blast two weeks earlier.

In 2008, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 680 points after the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the United States has been in recession since December 2007 and the release of a report indicating that U.S. manufacturing hit a 26-year low.

Also in 2008, President-elect Barack Obama introduced Hillary Clinton, his chief rival in the Democratic presidential race, as his choice for secretary of state. He also said he wanted to retain Robert Gates as secretary of defense.

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A thought for the day: it was Ezra Pound who said, "Literature is news that stays news." (c) UPI

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Bess Hawes, musician-folklorist who performed with Woody Guthrie, Pete ... - San Francisco Examiner

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 04:15 AM PST

LOS ANGELES — Bess Lomax Hawes, who sang with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, co-wrote the Kingston Trio hit "M.T.A." and spent a lifetime documenting American folklore in recordings and films, has died at age 88, her family said Monday.

Hawes, who moved to Portland, Ore., from Los Angeles two years ago, died there Friday of natural causes, according to her daughter, Corey Denos of Bellingham, Wash.

Hawes, who was the daughter of legendary folk musicologist John Lomax, grew up helping her father collect and transcribe field recordings of folk musicians for the Library of Congress in the 1920s and '30s.

In the 1940s, she had joined Guthrie, Seeger, her husband, Butch Hawes, and others in a popular, if loose-knit, folk group called the Almanac Singers that Seeger has since joked never bothered to rehearse until it got onstage. Her brother, musicologist Alan Lomax, had made some of Guthrie's earliest recordings.

In a 2002 interview, Hawes recalled bumping into Seeger one day in New York City. She had just graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and was working as a librarian.

"He told me he formed this little music group and would I like to be in it," she said.

In the Almanac Singers, Hawes and the others collaborated on numerous songs, never crediting them to any one writer.

"As a group, they wrote a lot of songs, usually in support of union movements," Denos said.

In the late 1940s, Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner co-wrote "M.T.A.," a whimsical, banjo-driven tale of a harried commuter named Charlie who gets on a Boston subway, learns he doesn't have the proper fare and is never allowed to get off. Often called "Charlie and the M.T.A.," it became a hit for the Kingston Trio a decade later.

Hawes, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles with her husband in the 1950s, settling into what was then a bohemian community in Topanga Canyon.

She later joined the faculty at California State University, Northridge, which honored her with a Phenomenal Woman Award in 2004. In the 1960s and '70s, as a professor in the anthropology department, she made several documentary films exploring American music and folklore.

She also taught banjo, guitar and mandolin.

She moved to Washington in the mid-1970s, where she was director of the National Endowment of the Arts' folk arts program until retiring in 1992. Then-President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 1993.

Besides her daughter, Hawes is survived by two other children, daughter Naomi Bishop and son Nicholas Hawes, both of Portland, Ore., and six grandchildren.

Denos said a private family service is planned next week, with public services expected later.

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