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Debate Surrounds al-Jaafari's Candidacy in Iraq; Interview with Grateful Dead Drummer Mickey Hart
Aired April 11, 2006 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go overseas now. Carnage in Karachi, a bomb blast in the midst of an outdoor prayer rally killing 40 people, at least wounding -- or -- and at least wounding a dozen others.
Muslims in the Pakistani port city were celebrating the Prophet Mohammed's birthday when the bomb went off, reportedly under a stage set up by a Sunni group. Afterwards some of them, among the thousands, had burned cars and pelted police with stones. No one has claimed responsibility at this point.
School kids in the crossfire in Afghanistan. At least six students were killed today when a rocket slammed into a school yard in the eastern part of that country. The target may have been a nearby U.S. military base. Police blame the Taliban.
His supporters call him a fighter, but critics of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari call him an obstacle to a unity government that might be able to tackle the country's problems. The latest attempt to end a perilous stalemate in Iraqi politics failed today as CNN's Aneesh Raman reports from Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Goodbye, Saddam.
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Saddam Hussein's regime fell three years ago this week, Ibrahim al-Jaafari was, by many accounts, the country's most popular politician, the most likely to lead Iraq into a new democratic era. But now, just four months after Iraqis voted in their first permanent government, Jaafari is at the center of a political stalemate that is paralyzing Iraq.
At issue is his ability to govern a country embroiled in sectarian strife, a country that after the bombing of the Shia Askariya mosque in late February, teeters now on the brink of all-out civil war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN ARABIC).
RAMAN: Monday, Kurdish and Sunni politicians issued a final rejection of Jaafari, saying the transitional prime minister proved he's not up to the task. But Jaafari shows no indication he's willing to step down, still claiming support from influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Tuesday, the Shia Alliance met again to try and find a way out, but once again emerged with no resolution. Iraq is in desperate need of leadership. Insurgent attacks like this one in Falluja on Monday rage on. Shia militias operate at will in some areas, and sectarian tensions are not abated.
South of Baghdad, Shia families continue to flee their homes, taking shelter at this tent city. "We have received more than 300 families," says this Red Crescent official, "and we are ready to receive more."
Sunnis are fleeing, as well, all fearing for their lives.
The power vacuum is undermining U.S.-led efforts to stabilize Iraq, prompting a recent visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and persisting calls by her boss for an end to the deadlock.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Forming a unity government is critical to defeating the terrorists and securing the peace.
RAMAN: And the only avenue that will lead to a decrease in U.S. troops anytime this year.
(on camera): A unity government is still what Iraqi politicians are hoping to achieve. It is why this stalemate arose in the first place. But with huge challenges ahead, forming the government will be one thing. Keeping it together for the next four years, quite another.
Aneesh Raman, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Lately, Tuesdays have been protest days in France, and today was no different though the crowds were smaller, and the demonstrations shorter. This one in Paris came a day after the government backed off a hugely controversial jobs measure that would have let employers fire younger workers at will. Students are happy but some want the government to scrap its whole package of labor reforms.
A tight race, a razor thin margin of victory. Hundreds of thousands of ballots in dispute -- American-style democracy -- in Italy where official results show Romano Prodi edging past incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in parliamentary elections. But Berlusconi refuses to concede. He says there were many irregularities in that voting. Italy's highest court will have the highest word.
Let's get straight to Tony Harris on a developing story. Tony, what have you got?
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Kyra, you remember this. The story of 8-year-old Amy Yates from Carrollton, Georgia down Macon way. She was killed, strangled in a mobile home park in April of 2004 while her family and the court believed at the time that a 14-year-old neighbor killed Amy. Now, the boy went to jail for the crime on a plea deal. Well, the family has come to believe that, in fact, the 14-year-old boy was and is, in fact, innocent. The family now believes that the real killer was an 18-year-old boy who came forward in February and confessed to the crime.
But because there wasn't a DNA match, because he was declared mentally incompetent by a psychiatrist, and because the boy made an inaccurate statement about the crime, his confession was discounted.
Well, now a juvenile court judge -- and here's the news today -- has vacated the 14-year-old's plea. And we understand that a short time ago, the judge decided that the boy, the 14-year-old, should be released from a residential treatment center with certain conditions, that the 14-year-old must stay under house arrest and continue with counseling while prosecutors, Kyra, take some time to review the files of both young men to determine what to do next.
Now, the judge is expected to sign the release order today. The 14-year-old will likely be home, Kyra, by the end of the week.
PHILLIPS: All right. Tony, we'll follow it. Thanks, Tony.
HARRIS: Sure. Sure thing.
PHILLIPS: Straight ahead on LIVE FROM, do you have Hendrix on your iPod?
(MUSIC)
PHILLIPS: Well, the United States Congress is making sure Jimi is in its collection. We're going to sort through all the "Purple Haze." Mickey Hart is with us. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. She's on the City Council of Detroit. Well, she had us dancing in the streets in 1964. Today she's dancing in the Library of Congress. Her recording, along with 49 others, has just been added to the library's National Recording Registry.
The sounds are being saved so your kids and grandkids will be able to hear them long after those 45s in your attic have warped or the mp3 files have disappeared from your hard drive. It's not just pop music being saved for posterity. Check out this bizarre folk funny.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Here to make a little noise about those sounds from the silly to the sublime, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. He helps the library decide what to save. Great to see you again, Mickey.
MICKEY HART, GRATEFUL DEAD DRUMMER: Good morning. Good to see you again, Sonya.
PHILLIPS: It's morning for you and evening for me. This is Kyra. Sonya is the other one in your ear in the control booth or in the control room. So you have us both. You have a monitor there? Can you see me?
HART: I can see you.
PHILLIPS: You're looking at Kyra but talking to Sonya. You're getting all confused. Are you good now?
HART: I'm good.
PHILLIPS: OK. Very good. Let's talk some music. This is the third time you've been back with us. You're not giving up on saving all these sounds?
HART: I'm a perennial. The sounds keep on coming, and as long as they keep on coming and we're picking them, I'll be here as long as you invite me.
PHILLIPS: Tell me why you're so involved with this and why you see it so important.
HART: Well, music is my life, and it's many people's lives. It's really important. Music is one of the most important energies that we have on the planet. So these recordings really represent our soul, our spirit, and they represent thousands of years of evolution. So it's a very important thing to do to honor and preserve these incredible recordings.
PHILLIPS: Not only do you get out there and you help pick these sounds and recordings to keep in the library, but you're asking other people, hey, if you have it, give it up. We want to check it out and put it in the library so anybody can access these sounds, music, speeches, everything, right?
HART: That's right. I mean, these don't only come from the archives and libraries of the world. They come from the basements, attics, people's personal collections. When they find a collection, they can always call the Library of Congress, the American Folk Life Center and tell them what they have and perhaps they will be digitized. We've only been imprinting sounding for a little over 100 years, back in 1877, Edison's discovery. We've been imprinting sound on many things, on wire, on wax, on tin, on glass, on acetone, on magnetic tape, on yak butter and everything.
PHILLIPS: I have to look that one up.
HART: I made that up, Sonya. But nevertheless, these mediums are decomposing rapidly. That's what the archives of the world are doing. They're trying to grab these sounds before these mediums give themselves up, whether by some kind of viruses or some kind of fungus or whatever. So that's part of this preservation process. It's perhaps a race we will never win but we are really trying.
PHILLIPS: Let's get down to business. We picked a couple of things to listen to. Let's listen to a little of Bop Hope.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BOB HOPE, COMMAND PERFORMANCE: This is Bob Rubber Drive Hope telling you guys out there that we are all going to keep turning in our rubber suspenders until we caught the Axis with their panzers down.
Everybody here is talking about the rubber drive. Back in New York they were worried about the rubber drive for a while, but not anymore. Kate Smith finally turned in her girdle. You should see the moon come over the mountain now.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Obviously, many of us love Bob Hope's humor, but why is it important to remember him and his humor and save his sound?
HART: Well, in times of stress -- this was after World War II, humor really relieves that and let us you laugh at yourself even at the hard times. Bob Hope was an immigrant born in England. This is a big topic now, the immigration and everything.
These musics would have never gotten to us if our shores were closed. Hope was one of those kind of guys. He went out there with the USO and brought a lot of relief to the troops. He was a real machine. So we thought it would be appropriate to honor the spoken word. You can say things in humor that you can't say like you can normally, and he addressed a lot of the more personal issues.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk peanut vendor. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Don Azpiazu and his orchestra. Now, you were influenced by Tito Puente. I know that you loved that whole culture.
HART: I love it.
PHILLIPS: Of course. He's one of your favorites. That's who you aspired to, a Tito. Tell us about Don. It's very much the same type of music and feel and sound.
HART: Yes. This came from the black diaspora, the slave trade that came through Central America and wound up in New Orleans around the turn of the century, where the slaves were allowed to practice these in Congo Square and Lake Pontchartrain, another great reason to preserve the music of New Orleans. Of course, the river took it north, Kansas city, Chicago, New York City. This is the birthplace of what we would call American music. Not only the music, but the instruments that were used to make that music. So this was one of the first recordings made in New York of Cuban music, which started a revolution with Tito Puente and all of the great Latin artists which inherited their clave rhythm.
PHILLIPS: The Buena Vista Social Club Too, right?
HART: All of this was part of the diaspora. That is how we really got this music. Big band, Rock 'n Roll, without those powerful West African rhythms, you know, we wouldn't be enjoying what we call music.
PHILLIPS: Perfect segue to Fats Domino. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
FATS DOMINO, (SINGING): I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill, on Blueberry Hill when I found you.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: I love watching you jam on the audio.
HART: The fat man, he took that gospel music and he made it rock. He did that triplet thing over the top of it.
PHILLIPS: He identified with everybody.
HART: You couldn't not dance to that. He was one of the pioneers and the fathers of Rock 'n Roll. So I mean you have to tip your hat to the fat man. He made it all happen. He sold over 110 million records. He was and is enormous.
PHILLIPS: You mentioned gospel. That leads us to Golden Gate Quartet. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
GOLDEN GATE QUARTET: (SINGING)
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Now, Mickey, when he was interviewing the Blind Boys of Alabama about a month ago, I asked who inspired them, they said when they were back at the school for the blind, this is who they listened to and this is who inspired them.
HART: That's right. This is that good old barbershop quartet music. When a musician starts to become a musician you listen to a body of work that has preceded. You learn it and it lights your fire and then you eventually learn your own music and get a new skill. You take it even further. That's a perfect analogy and a great story about -- this is what they did to the gospel music, which took it further. PHILLIPS: Someone who you call a real rare dude, one of our favorites, Buddy Holly. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BUDDY HOLLY (SINGING): Well, that will be the day when you say good-bye, yes, that will be the day when you make me cry, you say you're going to leave you know it's a lie cause that will be the day when I die
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: You said Fats took gospel to a different level. Buddy Holly took folk to a different level.
HART: He took folk and country music to a whole different level. A singer, songwriter, musician, performer. Gee, Buddy Holly changed the whole scene. He was the beginning of Rock 'n Roll. He added that back beat and that kind of hiccup to his vocal presentation. You know, you couldn't resist it. So I mean when he played, you danced. Buddy Holly, you're in.
PHILLIPS: Someone else who is in, Jimi Hendrix. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Now, he studied the blues and then electrified it, right Mickey.
HART: Oh, that's right. A whole bunch of us did that. That's what the Grateful Dead based their music on. First it was a jug band, then a blues band, and then we discovered what you now call Grateful Dead music. But when you listen to Jimi, it's a mating ritual. You know, I mean, that's what this is all about. Jimi took it -- the blues to a whole other place. He electrified it with his feedback and his crazy head. And he just went after it.
PHILLIPS: You played with him, right?
HART: I played with Jimi one night. Yes, we had a moment. Unfortunately, I invited him to the Grateful Dead show. One of the my -- well, an unusual moment. I invited him to a Grateful Dead show and I said come on up, you know, I'll call you up, you know, when the time was right. So Jimi was down there in all of his feathers and all of his finery. And, of course, I forgot to call him up. We played for three hours and Jimi stayed for three hours and finally left. But I -- he never played with the Grateful Dead, and that was one of the things that I regret. And I'm sorry about that, Jimi.
PHILLIPS: Ah, don't ever regret anything. You had some amazing -- well, you have those amazing memories tucked away. And you talk about them and write about them. And we're going to see you next year, right, when you pick the next group of sounds that are going to the Library of Congress. We're going to do this again.
HART: I'll be here. Thank you very much -- thank you very much for inviting me and giving me the time. I appreciate it.
PHILLIPS: It is always great to see you, Mickey. We love you here. We'll see you in a year, OK?
HART: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Take care.
More LIVE FROM right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Emimen brought "Eight Mile Road" to the masses. Today, it's a real life crime scene, and the victim is someone he knows.
A.J. Hammer of "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" joins us now from New York with the details. A.J., what's the deal?
A.J. HAMMER, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" HOST: Well, Kyra, a member of the popular rap group D12 and a guy who's a very close friend of Grammy- winner Eminem was shot and killed early this morning after an argument at a Detroit nightclub escalated into gunshots. Interscope Records has confirmed to CNN that rap star Deshaun Holton, who you're seeing right here -- he goes by the name "Proof" -- was fatally wounded at the CCC nightclub, along that famous eight mile road.
Proof was the best man at Eminem's wedding in January. He also appeared in the movie "8 Mile" and he was one of two victims that were shot in the head. The second, a 35-year-old male, remains hospitalized in critical condition. No arrests have been made in the shooting yet, which remains under investigation.
Well, actress/singer/dancer Jennifer Lopez is instigating a little bit of her own legal action. Lopez suing her ex-husband Ojani Noa, claiming he demanded $5 million from her to keep him from publishing a book containing private details about her and their relationship. The lawsuit was filed on Monday, and Lopes alleges that Noa violated a confidentiality agreement by distributing the manuscript of his book to various publishers. Lopez is seeking a restraining order that will keep the manuscript from becoming public. The couple was married briefly in 1997.
Well, of course, the big news in the entertainment world last week was Katie Couric's announcement that she's going to be leaving "The Today Show," while "The View"'s Meredith Vieria is going to be taking her place. Exactly where does that leave co-host Matt Lauer? Well, according to NBC, Lauer is staying put at least until 2011. The early morning host has agreed to a contract extension that will keep at "The Today Show" there for the next five years. Under the deal, Lauer will reportedly earn around $13 million a year, which is roughly equivalent to Couric's pay. And Vieria is expected to start as Matt Lauer's new co-host in September. Now, coming up tonight on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," we're going to be talking sex on TV. There is a lot of it, but does watching too much of it drive kids to have sex? "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" takes on a controversial new report at 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN Headline Prime. Kyra, we will see you then.
PHILLIPS: All right, thanks, A.J.
Well, state of emergency declared in parts of California, and the rain keeps falling. The third hour of LIVE FROM is straight ahead.
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