Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Marcus Frieburger #3


Scan11182, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 1/13/2009 06:15:00 AM

14 comments:

Mike Naughton said...

For those with the albums of the SOUTH SHORE CONCERT BAND, Richard Whitmarsh, the "March, Cole Brothers Grand Entry" can be heard on the following:

Circuses Marches, Vol. 10
Sounds of the Circus, Vol. 37

Turn up the volume and you will think the circus is going to be marching into your living room at any moment.

For those who would like to start their own circus music library, go to iTunes.com, search for this tune in the iTunes store, it is on sale for .99 or you can buy the entire album for $9.99.
iTunes has all, if not most, of Mr. Whitmarsh and the Concert Band albums.

It will be the best 99 cents you will spend this year -- the music boost productivity, lessen the burden of stress and has been known to cure the embarrassing ailments of both men and women.
For 99 cents you can afford to go home empty handed.

13 January, 2009 07:41
Anonymous said...

After reading your last paragraph, I didn't know medicine shows were still touring in your youth. Or are you much older than Ole Whitey?
Dick Flint
Baltimore
P.S. Yes, great music. Hope you get your 10% after the plug.

13 January, 2009 10:22
Anonymous said...

For the Record: The last medicine show to my knowledge was operated by Doc (Howard) and Emily Zarlington and lasted into the early 1970s, playing only in the smallest Texas towns.

Mary Jane and I knew them very well and briefly trouped with them on the school assembly show which they had out during the winter.

13 January, 2009 13:04
Buckles said...

On the subject of music. I just saw Pat walking up the driveway from the School Bus, carrying a case.
Tuned out to be a saxophone!
Ouch!

13 January, 2009 17:27
B.E.Trumble said...

There was a long time connection between little medicine shows and blues musicians, so many of the blues histories talk about the waning days of the shows. There's a documentary film from the 1970's, might be called Born For Hard Luck or something like that that includes footage of a medicine in the Carolinas in the early 1970's. Pitchman was a guy named Leo Kahdot, from Oklahoma, though the focus of the film was a bluesman called Peg Leg Sam.

The funny thing is that late night television peddles more quack cures than the medicine shows ever did, and informercials aren't half as entertaining.

13 January, 2009 23:53
Anonymous said...

A medicine show was recreated for the Smithsonian's Folk Festival on the Mall in 1979 and featured Doc Bartok, Fred Bloodgood (his real name, his son had Victorian photo emporiums in the '70s-'80s), and Alton Machen for pitchmen; Bob and Nae Noell with Bronco West as comedians; dancer George Franklin Washington from Louisville, Ky; and musicians Harvey Ellington, Frank Floyd, Snuffy Jenkins, Greasy Medlin, Hammie Nixon, Sam Pridgen, and Pappy Sherrill. All veterans and now all gone.

Dick Flint
Baltimore

14 January, 2009 00:15
Dick Flint said...

Buckles, did you mean to write "turned out" or are you truly meaning to "tune out?" Double ouch!
Dick Flint
Baltimore

14 January, 2009 01:06
Buckles said...

Great news today!
The School Bus driver says that the Saxophone is too large to be permitted on the bus.
Consequently all musical practices will be confined to School.

14 January, 2009 07:49
Mike Naughton said...

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,1

Ben, here's a link to that film BORN FOR HARD LUCK, it looks very interesting.

14 January, 2009 08:03
Buckles said...

Does anyone remember the Magic Elixyr Hadacol?
Due to it's high alcohol content many miraculous recoveries were recorded.

14 January, 2009 09:49
Anonymous said...

Buckles: Hadacol was the creation of State Senator Dudley Le Blanc of Louisiana.

Among his many other promotions for the elixir, he took out a medicine show which played Nashville's old baseball field Sulpher Dell in about 1950.

The concoction was supposedly made up of various B vitamins and contained a liberal dose of alcohol.

I frequently mix a batch here at the house but I am careful to omit the vitamins. Those things can be dangerous if you overdose!

14 January, 2009 13:26
Anonymous said...

When I was a kid, I had a lot of sore throuts and a friend of my grandmother said that I should use the wonderful mouth wash that they sold at one of the local dime stores. Guess what, the bottle was 20% alcohol. No wonder she was alwaays happy.
Bob Kitto

14 January, 2009 19:20
Anonymous said...

Roy Acuff recalls his early medicine show days in snippets at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6TNpoiXFCI
in a film that was produced by some fellow Smithsonian staffers. There’s a brief view of Bob Noell, as well. Also seen is Fred Bloodgood who, from 1928 until 1939, pitched miracle tonics and snake oils in the traveling medicine shows and “always relied on the cardinal rule of the pitchman- never use one word when four will suffice.” Here, from that film, is a transcript of Doc Bloodgood’s pitch for the Finley Company’s Hospital Tonic:

“I’m going to paint a word picture that the smallest boy or girl in the audience can understand. Those of you that keep house, you have sitting at your back door what we call a slop bucket or a garbage can. You get through with breakfast dishes you scrap it off in there. You do the same with lunch, the same with dinner. I don’t care what you do with it when it gets full. Take it out bury it, feed it to the pigs, but just don’t wash it. Keep it in that capacity for just one weeks time. Then I want you to see the filth that adheres to the sides. Smell the stench that comes from it, and stop and think, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been putting that same food into my stomach not for a day, not for a week, a month, or a year, but for five years, for ten years and I’ve never cleaned it out.”

“Well, I’ll guarantee, friends, that the very first dose, the very first dose of that Hospital Tonic will bring from your body double handfuls of filth, slime, mucous, corrosion, fecal matter, maggots and even worms. Not very long ago we asked the Finley Company to put one more ingredient into that tonic, something that would pass a tapeworm head and all. And I’m extremely proud to say that that condition now exists. I have some specimens in my office. Greasy, would you please bring me one of those specimens, please? Right out here, yeah that’s right. All right, thank you, thank you very much.”

“Now, this one came from a Mr. Adams—a brakeman on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. He got a bottle of medicine on Monday night. And on Friday he came down with this in a tin can. (Holds up a specimen jar)

“He said,'My God Doc, what’s this?' And I washed it and measured it, and it’s a tapeworm that measures just over sixteen feet in length. And I have Mr. Adams sworn statement in my trunk in there that he used no other medicine but the Hospital Tonic in the passing of that worm. Now, I’m going to have our agents pass among you just one time and one time only. The price so low you cannot afford to miss it. It’s just one dollar a bottle. Just raise your hand, or turn on your lights. They’d be glad to wait on you.”

Dick Flint
Baltimore

15 January, 2009 00:06
Don said...

While Big Apple Circus was in Atlanta last year, a luxury motorhome pulled up in front of the box office and a sophisticated, well dressed southern belle came to the gate to inquire about VIP tickets for the show. I accompanied her back to the coach where she invited me inside and introduced me to a distinguished gentleman in a suit and a bolo tie. He introduced himself as the legendary "Doc Scott", the last of the old time medicine men. His assistant explained that Doc is now semi-retired, living at his Georgia mansion but still making promotional appearances. He regaled me with wonderful stories of his life on the road and shared scrapbooks showing photos of his heyday in Nashville as a country music artist as well as his national tours with his variety show framed as an old time medicine show.

Doc and his lady enjoyed the Circus. On the way out, Doc presented me a bottle of his very own elixir. With a wink, he told me to "use it sparingly, as it is powerful stuff!"

Don Covington

15 January, 2009 10:42

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)