Rant #1,660: More Passings

This has been quite a rough year for passings, and I have two more to report.

One received a lot of coverage, or more coverage than at least I thought it would get, the other pretty much went under the radar, although social media did pick up on it.

Let me do the former first.

Many thought of Billy Paul as pretty much a one-hot wonder, but if you have to be remembered for something outstanding, I guess Paul will be remembered for these four words:

"Me and Mrs. Jones."

This sultry tune, which rose to the top of the charts in 1972, told a story of two illicit lovers during a time when you could only say so much in music, and he said plenty by not saying too much.

His outstanding vocal, sultry yet inviting, captured the mood of the country way back when, and catapulted this jazz/soul/rhythm and blues vocalist to incredible popularity in the early 1970s.

Associated with the Philadelphia soul sound made popular by such acts as the Stylistics and Lou Rawls, Paul had been trying to break through for about 20 years when this song hit it big.

People think he was a one-hit wonder simply because they only remember that one song, and the all-important followup tune pretty much fizzled.

"Am I Black Enough For You" was too testy for that time, and with its Black Power overtones, it was banned by many stations. "Let's Make a Baby" was also controversial, even getting Rev. Jesse Jackson to crusade against it.

Thus, although Paul had several singles hitting the Hot 100, none ever reached the level that "Me and Mrs. Jones" did. His music was often thought to be too controversial to get wide airplay, other than that one song.

But the Civil Rights movement allowed Paul--and so many others, including Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield--to sing about more than just the usual "boy meets girl" thing, even if his signature tune was just that, illicit as it was.

He continued to release records and tour up until his death on April 24 of pancreatic cancer. He was 81 years old.

The other person I wanted to speak about today is tied into Paul in kind of a bizarre way, in a way that her TV persona never alluded to.

Madeleine Sherwood was one of those well-known character actors who graced TV and movie screens in the 1960s and 1970s, most of which few knew by name.

The Canadian actress' big screen credits include "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof," which she also appeared in on Broadway, but she is best known for her whimsical role on one of the more popular shows of the late 1960s.

Sherwood, who in real life was a Quaker, appeared as Rev. Mother Placido on the Sally Field sitcom "The Flying Nun," certainly one of the strangest sitcoms ever to appear on network TV.

Field, the younger, with-it nun, would go flying away as her habit caught the wind, while Sherwood, as a more weathered and stern Mother Superior, took Sister Bertrille "under her wing," so to speak, and showed her that she needed to be responsible when the winds came through their tiny church and school in Puerto Rico.

Sherwood also appeared on numerous soap operas, but her link to Paul, although kind of tenuous, was real.

The actress was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and when the Civil Rights movement exploded in the mid 1960s, Sherwood was on the front lines.

She became friendly with Dr. Martin Luther King, and often attended marches and rallies on behalf of this movement, certainly one of the first Hollywood actors of note to join this movement. She also was jailed briefly for her participation in these events, many of which took place in the Deep South.

Sherwood later entered into the women's rights movement, as she continued to act on television, in such disparate fare as "Love American Style" and "Columbo."

She passed away at age 93 on April 23 in Quebec, Canada.

To some, Sherwood and Paul were simply footnotes on the times that they lived in, but they did share a common sense that allowed them to take stands on Civil Rights issues, whether subtly or directly--and become activists, in their own way, for change.

It is quite interesting that these two "footnotes" passed away so close to each other in time.