Western Front - 1967 October 31

              the western front
Vol. LX, No. 7 Western Washington State College, Bellingham, Wash. 98225 Tuesday, October 31, 1967 Individual Copy 10*
Support
Scholarships!
Ray Charles' style
is a question mark
Ray Charles, internationally-known jazz vocalist and pianist,
will present Western's Homecoming Concert tomorrow eve­ning.
^_
Interim president Charles J. Flora (I.) and Associated Students
president Dan Fredrickson (r.), are ready to board the boat
bringing them back from the fourth student workshop at
Orcas Island's Rosario Resort. Approximately 40 student
leaders, representatives, faculty and administrators gathered
there from Friday through Sunday to discuss student problems.
An in-depth article will appear next week in the Western
Front. (Photo by Finley)
By BOB HICKS
Feature Editor
" *way down in my soul
. . . I keep on trying' to
prove that I'm a waiter..."
—Ray Charles. "A Fool for
You''(Atlantic)
Ray Charles, the genius . . .
Ray Charles, Mr. Soul . . .
Ray Charles, rhythm and blues
. . . Ray Charles, country-western
. . . Ray Charles, ques­tion
mark.
Pianist-vocalist Ray Charles
is one of the most musically puz­zling
individuals in the jazz-pop
field. Charles, who will
give Western's Homecoming
concert tomorrow evening in
Carver Gym, is an unquestion­ably
outstanding musician who
does not always produce out­standing
music.
He is essentially a jazz-blues
performer who has found that
country-western and pop music
is more salable. Thus in such
recent hit singles as "In the
Heat of the Night/' "Cryin-
Time" and '1 Can't Stop Lovin'
You," the natural excitement gen­erated
by his inventive voice is
Cohen to speak
on drugs in
lecture series
"Drugs and Crime" is the
title of a week of lectures, Nov.
6-10.
Dr. Sydney Cohen, from the
University of California, Los
Angeles, will be the first speak,
er on Nov. 6, according to Chuck
Miller, social issues chairman.
He spoke on campus with Dr.
Timothy Leary last February.
At 4 p.m. Nov. 7, Frank Lark-worthy
from the Los Angeles
office of the Bureau of Drug
Abuse Control will speak on
"Abuses of LSD." He will
present a film on LSD before
his talk.
Homecoming starts tonight
with Royalty Review show
By SANDY UNTEWEGNER
Contributor
"Razzmatazz" is the pass­word
for Homecoming at West­ern
this week.
The Royalty Review Talent
Show will introduce the Home­coming
Queen candidates at 8
tonight in the Auditorium. Ad­mission
to the Review is com­plimentary.
Dorm-sponsored skits, indivi­dual
performances, and the
"Sweet Adelines" are planned
for this event.
On Wednesday, elections for
the Homecoming queen and her
court will be held from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m. in the Viking Union.
Ray Charles and the Rayettes
will give a concert at 8:30 p.m.
in Carver Gym.
Judging of the House Displays
begins at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
A traveling trophy, to be pass­ed
on during future homecom­ings,
will be awarded this year
by the Western Front in ad­dition
to the regular trophies.
Western's 1967 Queen Sigrid
will be crowned during the Cor­onation
ceremonies at 8 Thurs­day
evening" in the Auditorium.
The Viking football team will
also be presented during the
program.
A reception for the queen and
court will follow in the Viking
Union. Both the Coronation and
the reception are free.
Games Day, starting at 2 p.m.
in the athletic field behind Ridge-way
dorms, will set the tempo
for Friday's activities.
Chariot racing between dorms
or groups, pie throwing, root
beer drinking, will be some of
the events.
A Serpentine, or Snake Dance,
will start at 7:30 that night in
front of Higginson, and willwind
its way to the bonfire at the 21st
Street parking lot. Lettermen
will guard the Bonfire before
and after the burning, which of­ficially
starts at 8 p.m.
An Associated Students dance
featuring the New SPQR 217
band, will begin after the bon­fire,
at 9 p.m. in the Viking
Lounge.
Saturday's events will start
with the Alumni reception at
9:30 a.m. in the Viking Union
Lounge. All alumni and faculty
members are invited.
The Homecoming Parade,
complete with class floats, vint­age
cars, Homecoming Royalty,
and alumni dignitaries, will start
at 10:30 a.m. at the intersection
of Maple and 4th.
The parade will proceed down
Forest St. to Holly, down Holly
to Cornwall, and from Cornwall
to the high school*
At 1:30 p.m., Western's Home­coming
Game with the Univer­sity
of Puget Sound Loggers be­gins
in the Bellingham Civic
Field. A special half-time pro­gram
has been planned.
Big Mac's Black Bottom
Spread will offer steak dinners
in the Viking Commons between
5 and 7 p.m.
The Queen's Ball, 'Twenty-three
SWdoo," will carry on the
Roaring Twenties theme, and
will last from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
The dance, sponsored by
Valkyrie, will be formal, with
girls wearing long or short for­mats
and boys wearing dark
suits or dinner jackets. To pro­tect
the gym floor, girls are
asked to wear soft-soled shoes
instead of heels or stacked heels.
caged in by dull, chocolaty-smooth
band arrangements and
material.
Picking up on the oversenti-mentality
of such country perfor­mers
as Eddy Arnold and Hank
Williams, Charles backs him­self
in much of his recent ma­terial
with the urbane cryingvic-lin
inanities employed by per­formers
like Kitty Wells and
Porter Wagonner*
In sharp contrast to Charles'
relatively recent ventures into
the pop top 40 is his ATLANTIC
album "Ray Charles at New­port."
The ex-combo pianist
leads a driving, talented big
band at the Newport Jazz Fes­tival
in a series of gospel,
blues and modern-inflected jazz
arrangements.
"Talkin' 'Bout You," a
Charles composition, is repre­sentative
of the infective, hard­core
music on the Newport al­bum.
It's a tense, vital gospel
-blues that drags the listener
deep into the meaning of sound.
Charles, with hand-clapping and
guts improvisation backing him
up, soars away on a frenetic-.
emotionally full vocal journey
often reminiscent of the gospel
sound of Little Richard.
Using the vocal instrument in
all its basic inflections, Charles
grinds and croons, bellows and
spits, trips and pounds. The
fantastic variety and compul­sion
of his voice pulsates through
the mind and body, forcing the
listener into a strange and won­derful
world where words are
inconsequential.
The album also features mod­ern
jazz composer Milt
Jackson's "The Spirit-Feel," an
instrumental series of solos
staccatoed by piano. Charles' pi­ano
style is jumpy but tense,
somewhat like the Ramsey Lew­is
trio sound before Lewis
changed to commercial style.
The best of Charles' music
blends the sounds of blues,
rhythm and blues, gospel, soul
and straight-ahead modern jazz.
It is influenced by performers
from Leadbetter and Jack Tea-garden
to John Lee Hooker, Mud­dy
Waters and Stan Getz.
He's one of the greatest, if
he wants to be. And that is the
question mark.
Bellingham hoods, Dan "Thumbs-Down" Fredrickson (up. I.),
"Dirty" Dave Davis (low. I.), and Bob "Weak Cookies"
Partlow and their anonymous imported tough from Chicago
(up. r.), are planning for a St. Valentine's Day massacre to
be staged Somewhere on campus today. This is reportedly
part of the Homecoming activities. (Photo by L. Nelson)
Flora schedules weekly free hour
Interim President Charles J.
Flora has set aside an hour each
week in which anyone may visit
him without an appointment.
Times are 8to 8:30 a.m. Tues­days
and noon to 12:30 p.m.
Thursday.
Flora said he set up the "free
hour" to allow anyone on camp­us
to talk to him on an informal
basis about anything they want.