News from the Mudd

Hail to the King

Nixon and Elvis

On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley met President Richard M. Nixon in the White House. Elvis just showed up at the White House that morning and asked to see the President by presenting a letter to a security guard. A meeting was set up for 12:30 that day. The National Archives and Records Administration of the United States has an entire web site marking this event. “Wha…?” you say? This iconic photo from that meeting is said to be the most requested image from the National Archives. Look through the images on NARA website very quickly and you’ll get a nice flip-chart effect. It’s almost like being there. The Wikimedia Commons entry on this event includes this photo with the helpful description: “Elvis is on the right.”

So Take Them In Out of theRain

bean rapWe’re smack in the middle of the National Soybean Rust Symposium, which began Dec. 12 and runs through tomorrow, Dec. 14 in Louisville, KY. Seems soybean crops are plagued by a ruddy fungus which, we have to say, would make an excellent name for a rock group.

You can read proceedings from last year’s symposium. You can also view related websites, such as “Soybean Rust Advisory Program (SoyRAP)” (SoyRAP, there’s another excellent name) on the Plant Management Network website.

So Long, Ike

It may surprise the young folk out there that what is widely considered to be the first rock ‘n’ roll recording was done three years before Bill Haley and the Comets did “Rock Around the Clock.” Jackie Brenston and the Kings of Rhythm recorded “Rocket 88” in 1951, a recording which had nothing to do with either the space program (then non-existent) or a piano. It was an Oldsmobile. Again, ask your granddad. Please enjoy the audio on <a href=""this clip and ignore the wildy inappropriate video. We have a recording in the Mudd, too.

One of the people responsible for that 1951 recording died today. Ike Turner, probably more widely known as the Svengali/abusive husband to Tina Turner, was 76. Ike and Tina were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Louis Seize

king surpriseOn December 11, 1792, Louis XVI was brought before the French Convention Nationale, the assembly that governed France after the overthrow of the monarchy. Not long afterward the Convention Nationale released a statement that went something like this:

If you had been a nicer king

we wouldn’t do a thing,

but you were bad, you must admit.

We’re gonna take you and the queen

down to the guillotine

and shorten you a little bit.

The Mudd has some contemporary reports of this event, including a transcript of the trial, which may or may not contain the above text.