Redtree Times

I was painting in the studio yesterday and I threw on a movie that I hadn’t seen in years, Ball of Fire starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.  It’s a great comedy from1941, written by Billy Wilder and featuring some of the great character actors of the time.

I only mention  this because there’s a great scene of Stanwyck performing as a nightclub singer with Gene Krupa, the legendary drummer , and his band.  They perform Drum Boogie and if you ever doubted that your parents or grandparents knew how to rock, this will put those doubts to rest.

Try to stay with it to the end.  Krupa does a part where he changes Drum Boogie to Matchbox Boogie and plays the song with wooden matches as his sticks.  There’s a lesson in there for artists about the power of contrasts.

Good stuff…