Today’s Reflections

Good morning. If you recall, I moved from Oklahoma a little over a year ago, leaving things like baseball-size hail and tornadoes behind. Tornado watches are a part of life in Oklahoma, just like brushing your teeth. Warnings? You stop what you’re doing and go watch what going on out your front door. You know how to quickly get in your hidey hole. So pull up a chair if need be.

So why were there four unconfirmed (thus far) tornadoes in Northern Arizona?!?! The tornado warnings were the first ones since 2010! I live hours from these areas, but I guess I brought some bad mojo for them.

And for my area — golf ball- to baseball-sized hail pummeled several areas around town, luckily not my part. As a former insurance manager, I’m blue in the face telling people to call their insurance agent if they have comprehensive coverage so a claim can be started. “No, it won’t be covered — It’s an act of God.” It could be looked at like an Act of God, but that is one that is covered. “No, you need a special rider.” (?) I have the same insurance coverage as I did in OK, and it would be covered here. “Oh, you must have gotten a waiver.” (??)

I’ve been out the biz for a while. I forgot how stubborn and stupid people are about insurance.

ANYWAY (sorry for the rant), World Series Game 1 was pretty exciting! Good ballgame, the Brewers survived a ninth-inning rally by the Rays and won 3-2.

I appreciate your reading.

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Food For Thought:

Mamie Smith (née Robinson; May 26, 1891 – October 23, 1946) was an American singer. As a vaudeville singer, she performed in multiple styles, including jazz and blues. In 1920, she entered blues history as the first African-American artist to make vocal blues recordings. Robinson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1891. When she was around age 10, she found work touring with the Four Dancing Mitchells, a white act. As a teenager, she danced in Salem Tutt Whitney’s Smart Set. In 1913, she left the Tutt Brothers to sing in clubs in Harlem and married William “Smitty” Smith, a singer.

On February 14, 1920, Smith recorded “That Thing Called Love” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” for the Okeh label in New York City, after African-American songwriter and bandleader Perry Bradford persuaded Fred Hager to break the color barrier in black music recording. Although this was the first recording by a black blues singer, the backing musicians were all white. Hager had received threats from Northern and Southern pressure groups saying they would boycott the company if he recorded a black singer. Despite these threats, the record was a commercial success and opened the door for more black musicians to record.

Smith’s biggest hits were the August 10, 1920 recordings of a set of songs written by Perry Bradford, including “Crazy Blues” and “It’s Right Here for You (If You Don’t Get It, ‘Tain’t No Fault of Mine)”, again for Okeh Records. A million copies were sold in less than a year. Because of its historical significance, “Crazy Blues” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994 and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2005.

Although other African Americans had been recorded earlier, such as George W. Johnson in the 1890s, they were performing music that had a substantial following among European-American audiences. The success of Smith’s record prompted record companies to seek to record other female blues singers and began the era of what is now known as classic female blues.

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