This past Saturday, I took advantage of the first sunny day we've had here in well over a week to get some shots of two favorite Diedrich Rulfs masterpieces, the M.E. Rudisill House (1896) and the Roland Jones House (1895). Specifically, the morning sunlight really brought out the Queen Anne/Victorian detailing:
With busy North Street being just to the left in this picture, it was almost as if the 21st and 19th centuries were separated by merely the front yard of the Rudisill House.
One of the things I find admirable about Frank Sinatra's career was his willingness to try new things (sometimes hilariously so) in order to remain relevant in the fickle business of trying to sell a product to the popular music crowd. Whether it was agreeing to allow electric organ and bass on the Strangers in the Night album (1966) or his sublime recordings he made with Antonio Carlos Jobim (1967 and 1969),
Sinatra was surprisingly flexible when he needed to be. Such is the case when, in 1977 during the final days of his "Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back" phase, the crooner worked with a then 32-year-old producer/arranger named Joe Beck. Allegedly Don Costa suggested to Sinatra that he record some disco material. And the rest, as they say, is history. From Will Friedwald's Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art:
In the '60s and '70s, when he tried to reach the youth market, he stooped to their level by dabbling in ephemeral forms that were well beneath his taste and talent. His mercifully brief dalliance in "disco," as it used to be called, represents by far the most execrable example of this trend.
On February 16, 1977, he and Joe Beck recorded vocal tracks on "Night and Day" and "All or Nothing at Al" on top of disco orchestral backings that the producer-arranger had laid down the day before. While "All or Nothing at All" was wisely withheld (released only in 1995 on The Complete Reprise Recordings suitcase), "Night and Day" made it out as a single. (Sinatra also performed this version live, even as late as March 1979.)
There's the 1947 version he recorded during his late Columbia Records period, which Columbia Records didn't initially release, and apparently sat undocumented in Columbia's vaults until 1993:
"Albatross" is a guitar-based instrumental by Fleetwood Mac, released as a single in 1969, later featuring on the compilation albums The Pious Bird of Good Omen and English Rose. The piece was composed by Peter Green.
The composition suggests a relaxing sea setting, with cymbals imitating the sound of waves and a dreamy solo from Green's guitar. It contains only two chords, Emaj7 and F#m, and could be seen as an early ambient work. It is often assumed that Green used his Les Paul but he said it was his Fender Stratocaster, as there is subtle use of the vibrato bar. The Les Paul that Green used in Fleetwood Mac has a nasal tone like that achieved in the in-between positions of a Stratocaster, and heard in the song.
"The Alabama stopped showing movies in 1983 and the building reopened the following year as Bookstop after a restoration and adaptation designed by Judith Urrutia and Billy Lawrence of San Antonio.
Barnes & Noble, which owns Bookstop, plans to close the store and move to a new location built on the site of the River Oaks Shopping Center. Weingarten Realty Investors, the property owner, plans to demolish the building and redevelop the site."
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, c. 1941
Public School Stadium, c. 1942
Pearland School, c. 1945
University State Bank, c. 1946
Duplex, c. 1947 They could have named this place "Twin Palms."
Roy and Lillie Cullen Building, Baylor College of Medicine, c. 1948 "Health" and "Pathology" friezes
