Barack Obama’s answer last year when asked to name his personal top ten.
1. “Ready or Not” Fugees
2. “What’s Going On” Marvin Gaye
3. “I’m On Fire” Bruce Springsteen
4. “Gimme Shelter” Rolling Stones
5. “Sinnerman” Nina Simone
6. “Touch the Sky” Kanye West
7. “You’d Be So Easy to Love” Frank Sinatra
8. “Think” Aretha Franklin
9. “City of Blinding Lights” U2
10. “Yes We Can” will.i.am
NPR was vamping until the start of today’s inaugural concert by discussing the list.
Emily Bazelon sings to her child and tells us where to learn the songs. Interesting review that begins:
Bedtime at our house has two rituals: stories and songs. (Yes, some children take nightly baths. Ours prefer dirt.) The books come first, the lights go out, and then Simon, who is 5, asks me or my husband, Paul, to sing. Three or four or five songs later, he asks us to sing some more.
We oblige. Going to sleep has never come easily to Simon. And so the lullaby medley at our house often turns into a miniconcert, in terms of quantity if not quality. This is all very sweet, I know—whenever I complain about the singing, people whose children have grown up tell me I’ll miss it desperately someday. But at the moment, singing night after night gets tedious. I’m tired of my standard repertoire, and so is Simon. He has ruled out “Tender Shepherd” (“No more sheep”), “Hush Little Baby” (“I’m not a baby”), and “I Gave My Love a Cherry” (“Mommy stop singing that boring song!”). Also, almost anything in Hebrew and absolutely everything from Free To Be … You and Me. This is why, in our house, the songbook Rise Up Singing represents a nightly form of deliverance.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has a great tip for increasing your ability to rate tracks in iTunes. A simple command enables you to use 1/2 stars.
Mac only.
From The Miami Herald [2003 — no link]:
Before White Christmas, the holidays meant traditional carols and religious hymns. After it, secular tunes became part of the fiber of popular culture.
Rosen estimates 125 million copies of the three-minute song have been sold since it was first recorded in 1942.
”Is there another song that Kenny G, Peggy Lee, Mantovani, Odetta, Loretta Lynn, the Flaming Lips, the Edwin Hawkins Singers and the Backstreet Boys have in common?” writes Rosen. “What other tune links Destiny’s Child, The Three Tenors and Alvin and the Chipmunks; Perry Como, Garth Brooks and Stiff Little Fingers; the Reverend James Cleveland, Doris Day and Kiss?”
And Crosby’s performance marks a turning point in the music industry.
”It marks the moment when performers supplant songwriters as the central creative forces at least in mainstream American pop music,” he told NPR in 2002. “After the success of White Christmas, records become the primary means of disseminating pop music, and they replace sheet music. And the emphasis shifts to charismatic performances recorded for all time and preserved on records….”
Some facts about the “hit of hits”:
• Bing Crosby first performed White Christmas on Dec. 25, 1941, on NBC’s Kraft Music Hall radio show.
• Crosby first recorded the song for Decca on May 29, 1942. He rerecorded it March 19, 1947, as a result of damage to the 1942 master from frequent use. As in 1942, Crosby was joined in the studio by the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers.
• The song was featured in two films: Holiday Inn in 1942 (for which it collected the Academy Award for best song) and 12 years later in White Christmas.
• Crosby’s single sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was recognized as the bestselling single in any music category until 1998 when Elton John’s tribute to Princess Diana, Candle in the Wind, overtook it.
• Irving Berlin so hated Elvis Presley’s cover of White Christmas that he launched a fierce (and fruitless) campaign to ban Presley’s recording.
Turn up your speakers. Stay with it. Enjoy.
Thanks to J.D. for the link.
The Antique Christmas Lights Museum has lots of information about the evolution of Christmas lights, but hidden among its goodies is a page of Vintage Christmas Recordings. The 18 recordings were made 1908-1914 and reproduced on a 1908 Edison Home cylinder player for conversion to mp3 files.
Thanksgiving Day brings us a rare moment of coming together. A tradition that crosses boundaries. No, it’s not eating supper with family or even watching football. For radio fans and programmers alike, today’s holiday is best celebrated by the playing of one song, Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant.” That song, which was originally released as the 18-minute “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” will be heard today ….
The song, which is usually broadcast in either the original album track form or the even longer 30th anniversary live version, relates a Thanksgiving story. In it, Guthrie talks about enjoying a Thanksgiving feast with friends in Stockbridge at the title restaurant. After that, things get weird. The singer relates taking out the trash and, having no place to legally drop it because of the holiday, dumping it illegally. This leads to a long, shaggy-dog tale of being arrested for littering that turns into both an anti-Vietnam War protest and a statement of human rights. Somehow, by the end, he has turned the song into a statement that in union there is strength. And the best way to demonstrate that communal strength? Everyone, as listeners know, must sing along with the familiar refrain: “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” As the singer points out, if we can pull ourselves together to do that, we can change the world.
Downloadable versions from the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree Concert / Radio Show.
Alice Brock — the actual Alice.
… was born on this date in 1904.
As writer Len Weinstock noted,
Hawkins himself didn’t think there was anything outstanding about his Body and Soul saying “it was nothing special, just an encore I use in the clubs to get off the stand. I thought nothing of it and didn’t even bother to listen to it afterwards”. But the solo, two choruses of beautifully conceived and perfecly balanced improvisation, caused an immediate sensation with musicians and the public. It is still the standard to which tenorists aspire. A parallel can be drawn between Hawkins’ Body and Soul and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Both were brief, lucid, eloquent and timeless masterpieces, yet tossed off by their authors as mere ephemera.
Lincoln well knew what he had done at Gettysburg, but it’s a nice analogy even so.
Hawkins died in 1969.
Albuquerque, N.M., is no different from any other American city, in terms of its religious life; you’ve got churches, synagogues, a couple of Unitarian congregations and a mosque. But an abandoned gas station along old Route 66 is the unlikely home for another kind of Sunday-morning service, and it’s one that you won’t find anywhere else. It’s called the Church of Beethoven.
NPR tells about the spiritual experience you can get at a former gas station.
Thanks to Veronica for the tip.
… today would be a holiday.
It’s Chuck Berry’s birthday. He’s 82.
While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, “Maybellene.” Combined with quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics full of sly insinuations about cars and girls, Berry laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance. The song included a brief but scorching guitar solo built around his trademark double-string licks. Accompanied by long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including Willie Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire—which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven”—is required listening for any serious rock fan and required learning for any serious rock musician.
DETROIT – Levi Stubbs, the gravelly voiced, plaintive lead singer of the Motown group the Four Tops, the group’s front man in 1960s pop classics like “Reach Out (I’ll Be There),” and “Bernadette,” died Friday at his home here. He was 72.
The New York Times has an interesting article about Stubbs and the Tops.
“His voice was as unique as Marvin’s or as Smokey’s or as Stevie’s.”
They adopted the name in 1954 and were together until the first member died in 1997. One member, Abdul “Duke” Fakir, survives.
Hiram Williams was born on this date 84 years ago. We know him as Hank.
Hank Williams is an inductee of both the Country Music and Rock and Roll halls of fame.
Hank Williams’s legend has long overtaken the rather frail and painfully introverted man who spawned it. Almost singlehandedly, Williams set the agenda for contemporary country songcraft, but his appeal rests as much in the myth that even now surrounds his short life. His is the standard by which success is measured in country music on every level, even self-destruction.
The words and music of Hank Williams echo across the decades with a timelessness that transcends genre. He brought country music into the modern era, and his influence spilled over into the folk and rock arenas as well. Artists ranging from Gram Parsons and John Fogerty (who recorded an entire album of Williams’ songs after leaving Creedence Clearwater Revival) to the Georgia Satellites and Uncle Tupelo have adapted elements of Williams’ persona, especially the aura of emotional forthrightness and bruised idealism communicated in his songs. Some of Williams’ more upbeat country and blues-flavored numbers, on the other hand, anticipated the playful abandon of rockabilly.
Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac. He was found and declared dead on New Year’s Day 1953. He was 29.
… were born on September 8th.
Jimmie Rodgers, considered the “Father of Country Music,” was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on September 8, 1897. He died from TB in 1933. Jimmie Rodgers was the first person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
James Charles Rodgers, known professionally as the Singing Brakeman and America’s Blue Yodeler, was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was honored as the Father of Country Music, “the man who started it all.” From many diverse elements—the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American blues—Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations of country artists.
Patsy Cline, the most popular female country singer in recording history, was born in Winchester, Virginia, on September 8, 1932. She died in a plane crash in 1963. Patsy Cline is an inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cline is invariably invoked as a standard for female vocalists, and she has inspired scores of singers including k. d. lang, Loretta Lynn, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, and Wynonna Judd. Her brief career produced the #1 jukebox hit of all time, “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson) and her unique, crying style and vocal impeccability have established her reputation as the quintessential torch singer.
The best thing ever, Pandora Radio.
Especially if you have an iPhone or iPod touch (with internet connectivity).
For the iPhone and touch you download the app free from iTunes, sign up (email and password) and then select an artist, song or composer you like. I started with Willie Nelson, but experimented with Mozart, Bach, Corinne Bailey Rae, Bob Marley, Keren Ann and Billie Holiday. The service (which is free at present) relies on The Music Genome Project® to find similar tracks. It even tells you how — in brief very general terms — each track fits).
So Corinne Bailey Rae leads to Norah Jones leads to John Mayer leads to Sade back to Corinne back to Norah to India Arie to Amy Winehouse and so on. Along the way you can vote thumbs up or down to further refine your interests. (And you can click to buy the song from iTunes.)
What a great way to enjoy great music and find similar sounds too.
Apparently Pandora also works with Sprint and other AT&T phones — and, of course, in any browser.
Amy Winehouse gave way to Nelly Furtado.
Keren Ann lead to Bavarian Fruit Bread back to Keren Ann then on to Hem then to Holly Brook.
NewMexiKen and Donna spent a too warm but otherwise delightful evening at the Rio Grande Zoo Saturday. It was the first “One Wild Night at the Zoo” with nine different bands at times at seven different venues — plus we got to say hi to the momma giraffes.
The featured artist was country singer and Grammy-winner Kathy Mattea, who put on a wonderful show. I always judge how I feel about an entertainer if I think to myself, I want to see him/her again. Ms. Mattea certainly made the grade. Her voice is wonderful, the band terrific, her repartee with the audience seemingly genuine.
At one point Mattea quoted a friend who told her, “Music isn’t meant to be exchanged on pieces of plastic. It’s meant to be a shared experience.” (Paraphrased.) Ms. Mattea did everything she could last evening to live up to that idea.
Unfortunately, at these zoo concerts, there are any number of people who come to visit and not to listen. One guy near me never even turned his folding chair toward the stage. Others picked up their volume whenever the performer picked up hers. I try and be live-and-let-live, but there were moments when I wished I hadn’t sold Dad’s revolver.
Further, the major walkway near the zoo band shell is directly in front of the stage. Throughout the concert, whether a rocking number or a ballad, there is a constant stream of people walking across the sight lines between the performer and the audience. The zoo should find a better way before next summer.
If you have the good sense to read The Edge of the American West, you wouldn’t need me to be posting these videos that ari and eric have found for our enjoyment.
This is classic on so many levels.
Carlos Santana was born in Autlan de Navarro, Mexico, 61 years ago today. His family migrated to the U.S. in the 1960s.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame introduces inductee Santana this way —
Guitarist Carlos Santana is one of rock’s true virtuosos and guiding lights. Since 1966, he has led the group that bears his surname, selling over 30 million albums and performing before 13 million people. Though numerous musicians have passed through Santana’s ranks, the continuing presence of Carlos Santana at the helm has insured high standards. From the earliest days, when Santana first overlaid Afro-Latin rhythms upon a base of driving blues-rock, they have been musical sorcerers. The melodic fluency and kineticism of Santana’s guitar solos and the piercing, sustained tone that is his signature have made him one of rock’s standout instrumentalists. Coupled with the polyrhythmic fury of drums, congas and timbales, the sound of Santana in full flight is singularly exciting. Underlying it all is Santana’s belief that music should “create a bridge so people can have more trust and hope in humanity.”
Link via The Edge of the American West.
Billie Holiday died on this date in 1959. She was 44.
Considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, Billie Holiday lived a tempestuous and difficult life. Her singing expressed an incredible depth of emotion that spoke of hard times and injustice as well as triumph. Though her career was relatively short and often erratic, she left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since.
Indeed. Treat yourself.
Update: iTunes has a 65-track DRM-free Billie Holiday album for $10 (I cannot locate any background on this album, released Tuesday, but it seems an incredible buy.)
… was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, on this date in 1912. We, of course, know him as Woody Guthrie.
This from David Hajdu in a review in The New Yorker earlier this year of a new biography of Guthrie:
…”This Land Is Your Land,” a song that most people likely think they know in full. The lyrics had been written in anger, as a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” which Woody Guthrie deplored as treacle. In addition to the familiar stanzas (“As I went walking that ribbon of highway,” and so on), Guthrie had composed a couple of others, including this:
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people—
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God Blessed America for me.
There’s an American Masters program on Guthrie currently in circulation on PBS.
I ain’t never got nowhere yet
But I got there by hard work
Woody Guthrie died in 1967.
“I still do not have a computer, but having resisted an iPod as long as I could, I have now succumbed. On my iPod at the moment I have nothing but Bach, but I have all of Bach …”
Oliver Sacks, who turns 75 today. He has the entire 157-CD Bach set on his iPod.
Sacks has recently resumed piano lessons after a 60-year break.
95 today and still making music.
Pinetop will be appearing this Saturday at the Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Blues Festival. Next week he’ll be at the Master Musicians Festival in Somerset, Kentucky. August 1st and 2nd at Notodden Blues Festival in Notodden, Norway.
On this day in 1954, Elvis Presley recorded his first rock and roll song and his first hit, “That’s All Right, Mama.” Elvis had wanted to be a crooner, and in his first recording sessions he only sang slow ballads. But then, in between takes, Elvis and the other musicians started fooling around and singing a blues tune called “That’s All Right.” Sam Phillips asked them to start over from the beginning and recorded the song. He then rushed the record to the biggest DJ in Memphis, and it became Elvis’s breakout hit.
The “other musicians” were, of course, Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black on bass.
Sam recognized it right away. He was amazed that the boy even knew Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup — nothing in any of the songs he had tried so far gave any indication that he was drawn to this kind of music at all. But this was the sort of music that Sam had long ago wholeheartedly embraced, this was the sort of music of which he said, “This is where the soul of man never dies.” And the way the boy performed it, it came across with a freshness and an exuberance, it came across with the kind of clear-eyed, unabashed originality that Sam sought in all the music that he recorded — it was “different,” it was itself.
They worked on it. They worked hard on it, but without any of the laboriousness that had gone into the efforts to cut “I Love You Because.” Sam tried to get Scotty to cut down on the instrumental flourishes — “Simplify, simplify'” was the watchword. “If we wanted Chet Atkins,” said Sam good-humoredly, “we would have brought him up from Nashville and gotten him in the damn studio!” He was delighted with the rhythmic propulsion Bill Black brought to the sound. It was a slap beat and a tonal beat at the same time. He may not have been as good a bass player as his brother Johnny; in fact, Sam said, “Bill was one of the worst bass players in the world, technically, but, man, could he slap that thing!” And yet that wasn’t it either — it was the chemistry. There was Scotty, and there was Bill, and there was Elvis scared to death in the middle, “but sounding so fresh, because it was fresh to him.”
Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley