Bake yourself a ‘Sock It To Me’ cake

One of life’s great little pleasures is a big slice of “Sock It To Me” cake, a Southern delicacy. 

Jocelyn Delk Adams got the original Bundt cake recipe from her grandmother, Maggie Mae Small of Winona, Miss. Affectionately known as “Big Mama,” Maggie Mae called her precious little Joceyln “Grandbaby Cakes,” as the story goes. 

About 5,000 people live in Winona, located off Interstate 55 near “middle Mississippi.” The town is about midway between Memphis, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss. Traveling south, if you get to Possumneck, you’ve gone a tad too far. 

“Big Mama always baked a gorgeous centerpiece cake – no matter the occasion,” Adams said. She used Winona tree-picked fruit, eggs from Winona farm-raised chicken eggs and fresh-churned butter, thanks to Big Mama’s cow, Betsy.” 

“Watching Big Mama make these recipes – and learning how to make them myself – taught me so many lessons about baking and life,” Adams said. 

“I learned forgiveness, because things don’t always turn out perfectly. I picked up patience, which is especially necessary when baking cakes. I also learned a lot from Big Mama’s baking intuition. Her instincts were always spot on. She never required a timer; just a whiff of a cake’s fragrance in the air was enough for her to know it was ready.” 

Adams, who lives in Chicago, now uses “Grandbaby Cakes” as her brand for kitchen creations and has written a cookbook with that title. 

“I didn’t realize I had the ‘baking gene,’ as my family calls it, until my 20s. Now that I am in my 30s, I can’t stop baking! In my kitchen, I sing, I dance and I eat my way through so that each moment of the day is truly a moment for myself.”

 

“This Southern Sock It To Me cake recipe pairs a moist and buttery cake texture with a cinnamon-brown sugar-pecan swirl that is to die for! The vanilla glaze brings it all together perfectly. If you love buttery flavorful cakes, you will love this one even more. Simple, decadent and downright irresistible!” 

“This retro cake was very popular in the 1970s, especially in the South, because of its funky name,” Adams said. 

“Housewives everywhere loved this cake because it was a simple recipe, convenient and delicious. It’s sweet, nutty, light and full of spice. Absolutely perfect.” 

Start with a golden, buttery yellow cake mix. You will also need sour cream, vegetable oil, white sugar, eggs, a little water, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Use milk and confectioners’ sugar for the glaze. 

Sock it to the calories and fat and boost the protein by using yogurt in place of sour cream.

‘Sock it to me’ has a life of its own

How did the term “sock it to me” come to be, and who was the first person to utter it? 

Historians, linguists and lexicographers have done the research. They concur that early on “socking it” to someone usually involved striking a blow. 

During the Civil War, Union Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan reportedly counseled Gen. William H. Emory in 1864 at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Va., to “sock it to them, and to give them the devil.”

General Sheridan 

American author Mark Twain used a form of the expression more figuratively in “Life on the Mississippi,” published in 1883. 

Twain quoted a New Orleans undertaker who overcharged for coffins. “A rich man won’t have anything but your very best,” the undertaker said, “and you can just pile it on, too – pile it on and sock it to him.”

 Mark Twain

The phrase “sock it to me” in the 20th century came to mean: “Give it to me straight-up, factually and bluntly…with no sugar-coating.” 

In the music business, we find “sock it to me” in the lyrics of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, beginning with the group’s 1966 rendition of “Devil in the Blue Dress.” The band had a big hit in 1967 with “Sock It to Me, Baby!” 

An early novelty recording in 1966 was “Sock It to Me, Santa” by Bob Seger. 

The “sock it to me” phrase was popularized by Aretha Franklin in 1967 with “Respect.” She took the song written by Otis Redding and added the “sock it to me” lines to the arrangement. The rapid-fire refrain was sung almost as a doo-wop effect by the background singers who were Aretha’s sisters, Carolyn and Erma.

 Ben Zimmer of The Wall Street Journal said Franklin’s song is what prompted “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” to pick up the “sock it to me” expression. “Producer George Schlatter recalled a family car ride when the song came on the radio. His wife, Jolene Brand, said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could do that (sock it to me) on the air?’” 

The "Sock It To Me Girls" of Laugh-In: Judy Carne, Goldie Hawn and Chelsea Brown

“Schlatter said he was convinced of the phrase’s appeal when he heard their 5-year-old daughter, Maria, singing along in the back seat with the ‘sock it to me’ refrain.” (Today, Maria Schlatter is an Emmy award winning television producer.)

Nixon finds a path to White House door in 1968

Just as “television” derailed Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1960, an iconic TV appearance eight years later propelled his re-run for the White House in 1968. 

Nixon, who was the sitting Republican vice president back in 1960, was bidding to succeed Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House, and he had taken an early lead in the polls. That edge evaporated on Sept. 26, 1960, during the first televised presidential debate in U.S. history. 

It became immediately clear to viewers that Nixon was not “television-ready” to match up with Democrat John F. Kennedy that night. Ryan Lintelman of Smithsonian magazine reflected on the situation and wrote: 

“Nixon famously flubbed his television personality test in 1960. Compared to the young, telegenic Kennedy, Nixon, who was recovering from illness, looked pallid and sweaty.” 

By 1968, Nixon had brushed up his image. However, there was no presidential debate that year, because neither Nixon nor Democrat candidate Hubert Humphrey (vice president at the time) was eager to share the stage with third party candidate George Wallace, who was considered a maverick. 

Eager to project a better image on the small screen, Nixon agreed to a cameo appearance on a new TV comedy show, “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” The “Nixon episode” ran on Sept. 16, 1968, and many historians consider it to be “the most influential moment in the show’s incredibly successful five-year run,” Lintelman said. 

Nixon was asked to deliver the “Laugh-In” signature catchphrase: “Sock it to me.” It took six takes to record that four-word line, and Nixon turns it into a question: “Sock it to meee?” (as if Nixon himself couldn’t believe he was saying it).

 

The Nixon campaign also wisely aired a political commercial during the episode. Laugh-In “was the number-one rated program that season,” Lintelman said. 

Fellow presidential candidates Humphrey and Wallace were also offered the opportunity to appear on the show, but both declined. 

Freelance writer Joel Murray reported that George Schlatter, the show’s creator, once remarked: “Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election,” and “(Nixon) said the rest of his life that appearing on ‘Laugh-In’ is what got him elected.” 

“Now, you can’t have an election without the candidates going on every show in sight,” Schlatter added. “But at that point it was revolutionary.” Historical and hysterical.

Judy Carne of Northampton, England, was the Laugh-In cast regular who had popularized the phrase “sock it to me.”

 

“As a running gag on the show, Carne gamely bore the brunt of such pranks as having buckets of water thrown at her or being dropped through a trap door, all set in motion whenever she said ‘sock it to me!’” wrote Ben Zimmer of The Wall Street Journal. 

“Nixon wasn’t doused by water, dropped through a trap door, bombarded with marshmallows or subjected to any additional indignities – much as some in the audience might have enjoyed it,” Zimmer said. 

After Richard Nixon moved into the White House, he was frequently called on the telephone by “Laugh-In” character Ernestine Tomlin, the nosy switchboard operator (played by Lily Tomlin). She referred to him as Milhous, which was his middle name.

 

Her monologue inquired about his astronomical telephone bill, with 175 extensions at the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and the number of long-distance calls being made to foreign capitals. 

Ernestine asked: “Don’t you have any friends in this country?”

First ‘mermaid sightings’ recorded by legendary explorers

Early European explorers documented “mermaid sightings” when they were out sailing about, beginning in the 15th century. 

In 1493, the intrepid Italian explorer Christopher Columbus reported seeing three mermaids near the coast of Hispaniola. He described them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” 

Historians assume that Columbus saw manatees, not mermaids, wrote Richard Daybell, creator of “Wretched Richard’s Almanac.” 

“Manatees are slow-moving aquatic beasts, weighing a good thousand pounds with bulbous faces but Bette Davis eyes,” Daybell said. “Most observers would not mistake them for Daryl Hannah.” 

(Hannah was the movie star actress who appeared as a mermaid in Ron Howard’s film “Splash,” a fantasy-romantic comedy released in 1984.)

 In 1608, English explorer Henry Hudson reported seeing a mermaid off the coast of Norway. She had an upper body of a woman with pale skin and long black hair. Her lower body was speckled like a mackerel, and she had a tail like a porpoise. 

Capt. John Smith was another English adventurer who recorded seeing in 1614 an “attractive woman with long green hair swimming with all possible grace.” 

Today, mermaid enthusiasts can find an entire “city of living mermaids” at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, located in Florida’s Hernando County and near the Gulf of Mexico. 

Weeki Wachee Springs is where the mermaids have congregated since 1947. Local swimming celebrity Newton Perry reckoned that if he built an underwater theater and recruited a “splash of mermaids” to perform synchronized underwater routines, people would come and pay just to see them. He was right. 

One of the newest members of the Weeki Wachee mermaid squad is North Carolinian Lydia Byrd of Burnsville in Yancey County. She joined the cast in 2018. More than 60 applicants qualified for auditions, which tested their strength and abilities in the water as well as their people skills.

Lydia Byrd

 Lydia and six other swimmers were accepted into the program. This was her first fulltime job after graduating as an art major from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. 

The Weeki Wachee mermaids enjoy corresponding with their fans via “tail mail.” It’s an effort to pair young students with cast members. Children’s handwritten letters to their favorite mermaids are meant to “encourage literacy, penmanship and artistic talent.” The mermaids’ responses are videoed and posted on social media. 

This is an important aspect of the mermaid program to Lydia, because she said she enjoys encouraging young girls to follow their dreams.   

Weeki Wachee mermaids form strong bonds, uniting under the credo: “Once a mermaid, always a mermaid.” 

Every now and then, an “aggregation” of portly manatees will enter the spring to swim with a “splash” of Weeki Wachee mermaids. An incredible video clip by Liquid Productions is available on YouTube. 

“Manatees are calm and peaceful marine mammals that pose no danger to swimmers. In fact, they are curious animals that enjoy human interaction and are quite happy to relate with and be around humans,” noted Justin Strickland of Captain Mike’s, an ecotourism business. 

Manatees are herbivores and eat more than 60 different freshwater and saltwater plants. Manatees inhabit the shallow rivers of Florida and use their flippers to “walk” along the bottom, digging for plants and roots in the substrate. They use their flippers to scoop the vegetation toward their lips. 

Mermaiding may not be for everyone, but there are instructional weekend camps at Weeki Wachee for kids, teens, moms and grannies.

Mermaids are meticulous about washing their hair

Do you believe in magical mermaids? They are important figures in North Carolina’s coastal legend and lore, but “Mermaid Point” is found far inland in the Piedmont Crescent. 

Geographically, the spot is exactly where the Haw River joins the Deep River in Chatham County to form the Cape Fear River. The closest town to Mermaid Point is Moncure, which has about 710 inhabitants. 

As early as the 1700s, patrons leaving Ambrose Ramsey’s riverside tavern often reported seeing a “splash” of mermaids – not a pod, gaggle or school. 

The mermaids had wriggled their half-human/half-fish slender bodies out of the river to sit on a sandbar. They basked in the moonlight and combed their long, flowing tresses after having “washed the seawater from their hair,” reported Heather Leah, a history buff and journalist in Cary, N.C.

 

The mermaids swim, swam, swum up the Cape Fear River to preen in the freshwater, Leah said. That’s a long way to travel just to get a shampoo. But freshwater was essential, because mermaids are vain. Washing the salt from their hair made their manes shiny and beautiful. 

Ramsey’s tavern was destroyed by a ravaging flood in the late 19th century. About the same time, capitalists began constructing dams and locks along the Cape Fear River, denying natural access to Mermaid Point. As a result, the mermaids were forced to find other locales. 

Many swam up the shoreline from Cape Fear to settle in Carteret County, finding “happy places” along Shackleford Banks in clear, sparkling waters of Back Sound. New formulas have been introduced into the productions of modern mermaid shampoos, eliminating the need for long journeys from saltwater to freshwater locales. 

The most thriving community of present-day mermaids is found in Florida at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. 

Weeki Wachee Springs is the deepest naturally formed spring in the United States at a depth of 407 feet. Each day, more than 117 million gallons of clear, fresh 74-degree water bubble up out of subterranean caverns. 

“Weeki Wachee” was named by the native Seminoles. It means “little spring” or “winding river.” Flowing from the spring, the Weeki Wachee River bends its way 12 miles to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. 

Within the springs, people can sit in an aquarium-style, submerged “underwater theater” to watch mermaids swim, frolic and perform synchronized ballet routines about 20 feet below the surface. 

In 1947, Newton Perry opened his roadside attraction. His mermaids used camouflaged underwater breathing hoses. Oxygen was pumped from an air compressor, rather than from a tank strapped to the back of each mermaid.

 

Perry was a natural swimmer and showman. In the 1920s and ’30s, he found a niche in the film industry. Perry helped legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice diversify into “Sportlights,” a series of short films about sports figures. Perry was involved in about 150 productions. A reel titled “The Human Fish” featured Perry. Rice proclaimed him as the “best swimmer in America.” 

Perry became a go-to consultant for Hollywood movies that involved on-location water scenes, and Florida’s crystal-clear spring waters provided nearly ideal underwater filming locations. 

Perry was the stunt double for actor Johnny Weissmuller in six Tarzan films, “diving off cliffs and out of trees when the script called for such dramatics.” 

One of the Weeki Wachee Springs mermaids in the 2021 cast is Lydia Byrd. She is a North Carolina native who is making a big “splash with the splash.” We’ll need to meet her.

‘Push-Up’ treat brings back memories

Growing up in Evergreen, Colo., Gillie Houston bought a “Push-Up” every time the ice cream truck rolled through her neighborhood in the “good old days back in the 1990s.” 

Now, as a journalist living in Brooklyn, N.Y., Houston recently wrote about her love affair with Push-Up treats. 

“The Push-Up cardboard tube with its attached push-up stick and the soft, pastel-colored sherbet” was “summertime heaven.”

 

“Tart and tangy to start, giving way to the sweet, creamy undertones. There was nothing like that saccharine, faux-citrus flavor, which still lingers in my memory to this very day,” Houston wrote. “It always, always, ended up getting all over your hands, coating them in a thin sugar glaze that gave off the scent of artificial oranges.” 

“The cardboard cover always got a little soggy by the end, crumpling as the layer of condensation on the outside grew somewhat slimy, the plastic circle pushing upward from the bottom, revealing layer after layer of the sticky sherbet.” 

“But in the end, there was nothing like a Push-Up and still isn’t.”

Can you eat ‘just one’ ice cream sandwich?

America’s first ice cream sandwich was sighted on Aug. 2, 1899, on the streets of New York City, being sold for a penny each. Street vendors hawked the product as a “hokey pokey.” 

The standard definition of an ice cream sandwich is that it’s “a block of ice cream, usually vanilla, although other flavors can be used, sandwiched between two rectangular cookie wafers.” 

The term is generic, and there is a wide range of dessert manufacturers that are producing ice cream sandwiches today.

 

Karen Hipson of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, editor of an online lifestyle blog, has traced the evolution of the product. “Early pictures show beachgoers at Atlantic City, N.J., with their ice cream sandwiched between milk biscuits,” she wrote. 

“The sandwich layers included everything from angel food and sponge cake to shortbread cookies. Restaurants offered the ice cream sandwich as a decadent dessert for travelers. By 1940, grocers sold sandwiches made with crispy wafers,” Hipson commented. 

“One account claims the modern ice cream sandwich with the now famous chocolate wafer was invented in 1945 by Jerry Newberg.” 

He was an ice cream vendor at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pa., who worked home games of the baseball Pirates and the football Steelers. (Newberg sold his ice cream sandwiches for a nickel apiece.) 

“For me,” Hipson noted, “there’s something nostalgic about a standard ice cream sandwich – especially if the ice cream between the soft chocolate cookies is just a little bit melty.” 

“I guess it brings me back to summer as a kid,” she said, “sitting outside and trying to eat them before they melted all over us.”

‘Drumstick’ becomes chocolate sundae in a cone

A popular variant of the “Nutty Buddy” ice cream cone treat is known as the “Drumstick,” which was invented in 1928 – quite by accident. 

The story – as told by Tessa Newell, a writer for the Foodbeast food and drink blog – goes like this: 

I.C. Parker, promotions manager at the Pangburn Ice Cream & Candy Co. in Fort Worth, Texas, was enjoying a vanilla ice cream cone one day. “When Parker had to step out to tend to some urgent business, he handed off his cone to one of the women making chocolates.” 

“But when your hands are covered in chocolate, you tend to drop things. Like ice cream cones,” Newell said. 

“After the cone fell into a vat of chocolate, it was plopped onto a counter of chopped peanuts – what are the odds, right? When Parker returned, he was inspired by the delicious mistake, and the Drumstick was born.”

Parker’s wife, Jewel, said the chocolatey, nut-covered mess looked like a fried chicken drumstick, Newell wrote. 

The three Parker brothers – Bruce, I.C. and J.T. “Stubby” –formed a new family-owned company in the 1930s to make ice cream Drumsticks – “chocolate sundaes in a cone.”

 In 1947, Stubby Parker moved the company, now known as Big Drum Inc., to Columbus, Ohio, His son, Thomas L. Parker, became co-owner. Thomas assumed the presidency when Stubby died in 1968. 

The Drumstick brand was acquired in 1980 by Alco Standard Corp. of Valley Forge, Pa., a huge conglomerate of 80 companies in the food service, office products and paper distribution industries. 

I.C. Parker’s original recipe was improved to make Drumsticks creamier, crunchier and richer. Crispness of the cones was enriched by coating the inside of the cones with chocolate, creating a moisture barrier. The tip of every Drumstick is filled with an inch of solid chocolate. 

Its “super nugget cone” has two inches of solid chocolate at the bottom. 

Nestlé purchased the Drumstick label in 1991 and threw its marketing muscle behind Drumstick to try to distinguish it from its chief competitor, “Nutty Buddy.” 

Froneri, headquartered in North Yorkshire, England, “scooped up” Nestlé USA’s ice cream division in 2019. The company also owns Dreyer’s and Häagen-Dazs, making it the second-largest ice cream producer in the world, after Unilever.

‘Nutty Buddy’ is an iconic ice cream treat

The incomparable “Nutty Buddy” sweet sugar cone holds scoops of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, topped with a chocolate coating and peanut chunks. Was there a dollop of whipped cream in there, too? 

Nutty Buddy was created by Seymour Ice Cream Company in Dorchester, Mass., and named after its owner, Buddy Seymourian. Seymour’s ice cream factory was located in a three-story brick building built in the 1850s, but historians cannot agree on the company’s founding date. 

Seymour Ice Cream ceased operations in the 1980s, but the Nutty Buddy product has been passed along to an assortment of ice cream makers. 

The product eventually found a loving Southern home with Mayfield Creamery of Athens, Tenn., about midway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. 

“Ever since my grandfather, T.B. Mayfield Jr., shared his first batch of ice cream with our family and friends in 1923, our passion for making only the finest quality ice cream has never wavered,” said grandson Scottie Mayfield. 

“Today, almost 100 years later, I’m proud to say that we still use fresh cream from our own dairy to ensure we continue to deliver the genuine Southern homemade taste beloved by generations of Southern families.” 

Mayfield was purchased in 1990 by Dean Foods, based in Dallas, Texas. 

Mayfield Creamery products are now sold in 10 southeastern states: Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. 

New packaging was introduced in 2017. The graphics prominently feature a classic Mayfield delivery truck set against the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, highlighting the brand’s authentic southern roots, a spokesperson said. The familiar yellow and brown color tones have been retained. 

Sierra McClain of Capital Press reported that Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) of Kansas City, Kan., completed its acquisition of Dean Foods on May 1, 2020. DFA is the nation’s largest dairy cooperative with more than 13,500 farmer-members in 48 states and annual revenues of about $14 billion. Important consumer product brands include Borden cheese and Breakstone’s butter. 

DFA purchased virtually all of Dean Foods’ assets, including 44 facilities, for $433 million. The deal required the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Loyal Nutty Buddy fans were fearful that whole ordeal could result in Nutty Buddy cones being rationed, said T. Michael Smith of Roanoke, Va., an author and retired financial analyst. 

Smith shared an interesting story recently on his “Old and Quirky” blog. He said: “Several ladies were talking in our grill (at the Brandon Oaks senior living center) about the lack of Nutty Buddies in the display case. Alice was sitting in her motorized chair talking to Eloise: ‘I have seven of them in my basket. I’m going to put them in my freezer.’” 

“Eloise replied, ‘We won’t have to use them until next week. I have five in my freezer for this Friday (ice cream treat day for this circle of friends). That’s one for you, one for me, one for Maggie, one for Janet, and a fifth one, if Joycelyn shows up.’” 

“‘Great! We can use mine next week,’ Alice said. ‘I was told that another box was found” in the central, walk-in freezer. “Since I have the last seven from the display case, they’ll probably bring out more. We’ll need to check tomorrow and the next day.’” 

“‘Let’s just get five at a time,’ Eloise commented. ‘We don’t want to create suspicion.’”

‘Good Humor’ bars unite vanilla and chocolate

Youngstown, Ohio, is the birthplace of “Good Humor Ice Cream Suckers,” and the man who invented the icy cold dessert treat there is “a folk hero in eastern Ohio.” 

Harry B. Burt was 18 when he opened a confectionery in downtown Youngstown in 1893. The archivist at the Mahoning Valley Historical Society in Youngstown said Burt began selling “old-fashioned chocolate cream drops,” but he soon branched out into ice cream and baked goods. Before long, Burt was running a soda fountain, grill, bakery and restaurant. 

“In the early 1920s, Burt developed a smooth chocolate coating that was compatible with vanilla ice cream. His daughter, Ruth, said the ice cream bar was ‘messy.’ The solution, suggested by his son, Harry Jr., was to add a wooden stick, as if the product was a lollypop candy.”

 

“The new chocolate-coated ice cream bar, ‘Good Humor,’ alluded to the 19th century belief that a person’s humor or temperament is related to a person’s sense of taste, or the ‘humor’ of the palate.” Amen to that. 

Burt was the first to mass produce ice cream bars and sell them in area neighborhoods from a fleet of 12 freezer trucks. Sing-songy bells were attached to the vehicles, so drivers could ding-a-ling as they drove. 

Good Humor drivers wore clean, snappy, crisp white uniforms and brimmed caps. The ice cream men were viewed as role models by youngsters.

Shortly after Burt’s death in 1926, investors purchased the brand from his widow, Cora Burt, and formed the Good Humor Corporation of America in Chicago. The company grew into a national phenomenon. 

In 1965, TIME magazine reported: “To the young, the Good Humor Man has become better known than the fire chief, more welcome than the mailman, more respected than the corner cop.” 

Another ice cream pioneer was William Isaly of Mansfield, Ohio, who started making his own ice cream bars in 1922, about 110 miles west of Youngstown. 

Isaly thought Burt’s frozen treats with a wooden handle were “kid stuff.” He aimed for a more mature audience, so “he created thick, chocolate-coated ice cream squares, wrapped in a fancy, silver foil wrapper,” wrote Candace Braun Davison for Delish.com. 

“The treat was named after the Klondike River in the Canadian Yukon Territory,” she said. The Klondike ice cream treat logo, with a white polar bear and a royal blue Artic sun design in the background, is an American classic. 

The frozen dessert treats industry has undergone a series of twists and turns, and ironically, famous brands such as Good Humor, Breyers, Ben & Jerry’s, Klondike, Popsicle and Sealtest are now all part of the same family – under the Unilever umbrella.   

Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company, headquartered in London and in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Sneakers gain momentum after ‘Beatlemania’

Pop culture entered a new era when the Beatles burst forth onto the entertainment scene in Liverpool, England, in 1962. American fans were on pins and needles to see which brand of sneakers the band members would choose to wear.

This was one area in which the musically gifted blokes from across the pond displayed their individualism. 

The late George Harrison was a “bellringer for Jack Purcell kicks,” said Zak Maoui, style editor at British GQ magazine, based in London. “Harrison was the purveyor of Jack Purcells,” preferring them over all others.

 

The favorite brand of sneakers of the late John Lennon was Spring Court, a line of canvas and rubber shoes developed in Paris. He and Yoko Ono wore matching Spring Court kicks to their wedding in 1969. 

There are ample photographs showing the left-handed guitarist Paul McCartney, now 78, wearing black high top Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars while lounging backstage. He also was known to wear low top Adidas when out and about.

For a time, Ringo Starr had a sneaker deal with Adidas, based in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Since 2014, however, Starr’s been a paid spokesperson for Skechers of Manhattan Beach, Calif. He’s still banging on his drums at age 80. 

The first big song about sneakers to make an impression in the music world was “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” written and performed in 1963 by Tommy Tucker of Springfield, Ohio, an American blues artist. 

“Hi-Heel Sneakers” peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1964. Thy lyrics were hot: 

Put on your high-heel sneakers, child,

Wear your wig-hat on your head.

Ya know you’re looking mighty fine, baby;

I’m pretty sure you’re gonna knock ’em dead.

The Beatles were adamant about avoiding product endorsements. Nike overstepped that boundary. A huge legal dispute ensued. In 1987, Nike used the Beatles’ 1968 recording of “Revolution” in television commercials with tennis player John McEnroe to promote shoe sales, without the group’s consent. 

Attorneys asserted that the Beatles group doesn’t “endorse or peddle sneakers or panty hose…or anything else, from bras to beer.” The lawyers contended that the Beatles “wrote and recorded their songs as artists and not as pitch-men for any product.” 

Harrison was the most vocal, saying if Nike prevailed, “every Beatles’ song ever recorded is going to be advertising women’s underwear and sausages. We’ve got to put a stop to it in order to set a precedent.” 

Nike finally decided to discontinue airing the ads using the “Revolution” song in 1988. An out-of-court settlement was reached in 1989. 

The advertisement not only helped to sell lots of Nike Air Trainer and Air Jordan athletic shoes, but also helped to sell, re-energize and introduce the Beatles’ music to a whole new generation of listeners, reported Jack Doyle, owner of The Pop History Dig, a nonprofit website dedicated to contemporary culture and popular history.  

Doyle said TheStreet.com, a business-oriented web site, selected “the top 100 business events that shaped the 20th century. Nike’s ‘Revolution’ commercial made the cut at No. 97.” 

The Street.com touted the commercial for creating a new genre of advertising and “commodifying dissent.” Editors remarked: “It’s not the first time the ideals of the 1960s – freedom, individuality, anti-materialism, dissent – were called upon to push product but it may stand as the biggest co-optation.” 

The emergence of hip-hop and rap music brought with it a subculture of “sneakerheads.” 

Wearing Adidas Superstars, Run-D.M.C., released “My Adidas” in 1986. The trio’s shoe contract with Adidas became a template for future sneaker/hip-hop relationships.

What’s in your clothes closet? ‘Chucks’ or ‘Jack Purcells’?

For many generations, two iconic athletic shoe brands have competed for our allegiance. Are you partial to Converse Chuck Taylor All Star basketball shoes, or do you prefer classic Jack Purcell tennis shoes? 

This is a story that continues to unfold. Today, both brands are thriving after having been re-engineered, revolutionized and “retro-ized”…all at the same time. 

In the beginning, Marquis Converse of Malden, Mass., opted in 1917 to expand his core business of manufacturing rubber galoshes. He boldly added basketball footwear to his product line. 

Converse introduced high top All Stars with rubber soles and canvas uppers.

 

Just a few years later, Converse hired a Midwesterner who knew the game of basketball inside and out – Charles Hollis “Chuck” Taylor – to take charge of sales and marketing.

Taylor’s secret to success was cozying up to the people who had the most influence over young basketball players – their coaches. Taylor worked long and hard to convince coaches that black canvas Converse All Stars were the best. He was very good at building relationships. 

Converse recognized Taylor’s contributions by relabeling the brand in 1932 as Chuck Taylor All Stars, adding his signature to the circular logo patch on each shoe.

Meanwhile, John Edward “Jack” Purcell of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, began working with Dr. Benjamin Franklin (B.F.) Goodrich to develop a durable performance shoe “for the racquet sports.” 

Purcell designed a low top, bleached-white canvas-and-rubber sneaker that was launched in Canada in 1933.

 

Tim Newcomb of Sports Illustrated said: “Jack Purcell sneakers had perfectly flat soles, unmarred by grooves that could tear up grass, clay or composition tennis courts. For most of the 20th century, Jack Purcells were ‘required wear’ on these surfaces.” 

“In the 1930s and ’40s, the Purcell was the shoe,” said Jack Kramer, an American tennis legend, who held the Number One ranking for several years. 

“In 1935, I went to a junior tournament in San Bernardino, and everyone was wearing Jack Purcells,” Kramer said. “I needed to have the shoe with the funny blue mark on the toe.” 

The trademarked “smile” on the toe was part of the mystique.

Few knew that the real Jack Purcell was just a so-so tennis player. However, he was a world championship badminton player and nicknamed “The Smiler” for his ever-present grin. After a 13-year career, Purcell retired from the sport in 1944; he never lost a match on the badminton court. 

In 1936, Converse introduced its “Olympic white” version of “Chucks,” and from then on, it was game-on between the two shoe companies to make inroads with “general consumers.” 

Freelance feature writer Todd Truman said Jack Purcells were embraced by “the west coast surf and beach scene and became a symbol of attire at prep schools and country clubs across the nation.” 

“The Jack Purcell still carries a hipper-than-thou kind of swagger,” Truman asserted. 

Truman said that Chuck Taylors began popping up on television in 1950s, featured in black-and-white programs such as “Lassie,” “The Donna Reed Show” and “Dennis the Menace.”

 By 1955, Converse owned 80% of the entire sneaker industry. Low top All Stars made their debut in 1957. 

Chucks took on a more rough-and-tumble image in the 1961 film “West Side Story.” The Sharks wore the original black high tops, and the Jets wore the white All Stars, said Whitney Matheson, a pop culture journalist. 

Would Jack Purcells and Chuck Taylors survive…once the Beatles arrived?