IN: Herb Jeffries (born Umberto Alexander Valentino; September 24, 1913 - May 25, 2014) was an African-American actor of film and television and popular music and jazz singer-songwriter, known of his baritone voice. He was of African descent and Hollywood's first singing black cowboy. In the 1940s and 1950s Jeffries recorded for a number of labels, including RCA Victor, Exclusive, Coral, Decca, Bethlehem, Columbia, Mercury and Trend. His album Jamaica, recorded by RKO, is a concept album of self-composed calypso songs.

Touring the Deep South with Hines, Jeffries was struck by the realities of segregation, as the Orchestra's playing was restricted to tobacco warehouses and black-only movie theatres. Watching young boys fill theatres to watch the latest western, Jeffries resolved to create a cowboy hero geared specifically for such an audience. A self-confessed western buff who had grown up watching the silent escapades of Tom Mix and Jack Holt, in the 1930s Jeffries set out to produce a low-budget western with an all-black cast. Though the silent era had seen a number of films starring only black actors, they had all but disappeared with the economic downturn and the arrival of the talkies, which proved too expensive for many of the "white independents" funding such projects. Jeffries's ambition was to produce sound cinema's "first all-Negro musical western". To fund his project, Jeffries approached a veteran B-movie producer named Jed Buell. Jeffries, having obtained finances, wrote his own songs for the film and hired Spencer Williams to appear with him. When Buell wanted to know of a likely candidate for the lead role, Jeffries nominated himself. Having grown up partly on his grandfather's farm, he had all the requisite horse-riding and roping skills, beside a fine singing voice, but Buell expressed concerns; Jeffries, whose mother was of Irish descent, was "not black enough". Eventually they went ahead, using make-up to darken the leading man's skin tone. Jeffries made his debut as a crooning cowboy with Harlem on the Prairie, which was considered the first black western following the inauguration of the talkies and the first sound Western with an all-black cast. The movie was shot in 1937 over five days at N.B. Murray's Dude Ranch in Apple Valley, California, with Jeffries performing all his own stunts. Though critical reception was mixed, the film received a write-up in Time magazine and grossed $50,000 in its first 12 months. Playing a singing cowboy in low-budget films, Jeffries became known as the "Bronze Buckaroo" by his fans. In a time of American racial segregation, such "race movies" played mostly in theaters catering to African-American audiences. The films include Harlem on the Prairie, The Bronze Buckaroo, Harlem Rides the Range and Two-Gun Man from Harlem.  Jeffries went on to star in another three musical westerns over the next two years. Jeffries starred as a singing cowboy, in several all-black Western films, in which he sang his own western compositions. In those films, Jeffries starred as cowboy Bob Blake, sang and performed his own stunts. Bob Blake was the good guy, with a thin mustache, who wore a white Stetson and rode a white horse named Stardusk.  Jeffries went on to make other films, starring in the title film role of Calypso Joe co-starring Angie Dickinson in Calypso Joe (1957). In 1968, Jeffries appeared in the long-running western TV series The Virginian playing a gunslinger who intimidated the town. In the 1970s he appeared on episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Hawaii Five-0. He later directed and produced Mundo depravados, a cult film starring his wife, Tempest Storm.

Did he win any awards for that movie?

OUT: the film received a write-up in Time magazine and grossed $50,000 in its first 12 months.


IN: Gong are an international progressive rock band that incorporates elements of jazz and space rock into their musical style. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Pierre Moerlen, Bill Laswell and Theo Travis. Others who have played on stage with Gong include Don Cherry, Chris Cutler, Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Dave Stewart and Tatsuya Yoshida.

In August 1969, film director Jerome Laperrousaz, a close friend of the pair, invited them back to France to record a soundtrack for a motorcycle racing movie which he was planning. This came to nothing at the time, but they were subsequently approached by Jean Karakos of the newly-formed independent label BYG Actuel to record an album, and so set about forming a new electric Gong band in Paris, recruiting their first rhythm section of Christian Tritsch (bass) and Rachid Houari (drums and percussion) and re-connecting with a saxophonist called Didier Malherbe whom they had met in Deia. However, Tritsch was not ready in time for the sessions and so Allen played the bass guitar himself. The album, entitled Magick Brother, was completed in October.  The re-born Gong played its debut gig at the BYG Actuel Festival in the small Belgian town of Amougies, on 27 October 1969, joined by Danny Laloux on hunting horn and percussion, and Dieter Gewissler and Gerry Fields on violin, and was introduced to the stage by bemused compere Frank Zappa. Magick Brother was released in March 1970, followed in April by a non-album single, "Est-Ce Que Je Suis; Garcon Ou Fille?" b/w "Hip Hip Hypnotise Ya", which again featured Laloux and Gewissler. In October, the band moved into an abandoned 12-room hunting lodge called Pavillon du Hay, near Voisines and Sens, 120 km south-east of Paris. They would be based there until early 1974.  Houari left the band in the spring of 1971 and was replaced by English drummer Pip Pyle, whom Allen had been introduced to by Robert Wyatt during the recording of his debut solo album, Banana Moon. The new line-up recorded a soundtrack for Laperrousaz's movie, now entitled Continental Circus, and played at the second Glastonbury Festival, later documented on the Glastonbury Fayre album. Next, they began work on their second studio album, Camembert Electrique, later referred to by Allen as "the first real band album". It established the progressive, space rock sound which would make their name, leading, in the autumn, to their first UK tour. However, by the end of the year Pyle had left the group, to be replaced by another English drummer, Laurie Allan.

Did anything else big happen during those years?

OUT:
The new line-up recorded a soundtrack for Laperrousaz's movie,