Word: mcphatter
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...roles on Iwo Jima, but that didn't mean they were safe. Under enemy fire, they braved perilous beach landings, unloaded and shuttled ammunition to the front lines and weathered Japanese onslaughts on their positions. "Shells, mortar and hand grenades don't know the difference of color," says Thomas McPhatter, an African-American Marine who hauled ammo during the battle. "Everybody out there was trying to cover their butts to survive...
That may be true, but it is not enough to placate Yvonne Latty, the author of a book about African-American veterans. Given the hazards of their mission and the virulent racism they endured--McPhatter says he had to execute his mission without giving orders to white troops, even if they were needed--Latty argues that black soldiers warrant more than fleeting inclusion in the film. Christopher Paul Moore, author of a book about black soldiers in World War II, praises Eastwood's rendering of the battle but laments the limited role it accords African Americans. "Without black labor...
...explicit enough for ya? The title track - which lyrically is just another song about being alone or lonely on a holiday that's meant to reunite loved ones - was sung as a cry of sexual deprivation. Elvis' "White Christmas" borrows heavily from the 1954 doo-wop version by Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters; but most of the other renditions are not so extreme. He does an excellent, committed "Silent Night," with careful intonations that his Tupelo elocution teacher would've been proud of (a soft hammering of those final t's). And "Here Comes Santa Claus" shows how much...
...White Christmas" (1942), by The Drifters (1953), on "Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters/Rockin' & Driftin'." Berlin may have hated Elvis' version but, according to the liner notes for this double CD, he did approve the Drifters' doo-wop (or, rather, doot-doot) waxing when producer Jerry Wexler sent him an early copy. And why not? T he bass lead will rattle china three houses away, and McPhatter's natural falsetto manages to evoke both Billie Holiday and a child crazed by caffeine on Christmas morning. (The D's also did a nifty "Easter Parade...
...song worked for girl singers (Jo Stafford, #9 in 1946), for Nashville cats (Ernest Tubb, a #7 country charter in 1949) and for black artists. The Ravens had a #9 R&B hit in 1949, and Clyde McPhatter?s Drifters climbed to #2 R&B in 1954; this version, reissued the following two years, and went to #5 and #12 on the pop charts. With the freak exception of the 1997 Princess Diana remix of "Candle in the Wind," "White Christmas" has sold more records than any song in history. It was also the last Berlin song to achieve...