As noted earlier, one of the reasons April 9th should be a national holiday is Paul Robeson. He was born 110 years ago today.
Listen to him sing “Ol’ Man River.”
Category: Music
Yip Harburg
… was born on this date in 1896. One of the great lyricists, Harburg would be loved by us all if only for —
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow
Why oh why can’t I?
The Harburg Foundation provides this biographical sketch:
Edgar Y. (Yip) Harburg (1896-1981) was born of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents of modest means on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He attended the City University of New York. In high school (Townsand Harris) he met his lifelong friend, Ira Gershwin and discovered that they shared a mutual love for the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Yip and Ira were frequent contributors of poetry and light verse to their high school and college papers.
The years after college found Yip slipping further away from writing and eventually into the world of business. After the electric appliance business Yip had helped develop over seven long years was decimated by the stock market crash of 1929, Yip turned his attention back full time to the art of writing lyrics. His old friend Ira Gershwin became a mentor, co-writer and promoter of Yip’s.
Mr. Harburg’s Broadway achievements included Bloomer Girl, Finnian’s Rainbow, Flahooley and Jamaica.
His most noted work in film musicals was in The Wizard of OZ for which he wrote lyrics, was the final editor and contributed much to the script (including the scene at the end where the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are rewarded for their efforts by the Wizard). He also wrote lyrics for the Warner Brothers movie, Gay Purr-ee.
Yip was “blacklisted” during the 50’s by film, radio and television for his liberal views.
In all, Yip wrote lyrics to 537 songs including; “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”, “April In Paris”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, “Hurry Sundown”, “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”, “How Are Things In Glocca Mora” and of course his most famous… “Over the Rainbow”.
River: The Joni Letters
A fine and insightful review by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of Herbie Hancock’s Grammy-winning album of the year.
Muddy Waters
… was born on this date in 1915. His real name was McKinley Morganfield.
The following is excerpted from Waters’ obituary written by Robert Palmer in The New York Times, May 1, 1983:
Beginning in the early 1950’s, Mr. Waters made a series of hit records for Chicago’s Chess label that made him the undisputed king of Chicago blues singers. He was the first popular bandleader to assemble and lead a truly electric band, a band that used amplification to make the music more ferociously physical instead of simply making it a little louder.
In 1958, he became the first artist to play electric blues in England, and while many British folk-blues fans recoiled in horror, his visit inspired young musicians like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones, who later named their band the Rolling Stones after Mr. Waters’s early hit “Rollin’ Stone.” Bob Dylan’s mid-1960’s rock hit “Like a Rolling Stone” and the leading rock newspaper Rolling Stone were also named after Mr. Waters’s original song. …
But Muddy Waters was more than a major influence in the pop music world. He was a great singer of American vernacular music, a vocal artist of astonishing power, range, depth, and subtlety. Among musicians and singers, his remarkable sense of timing, his command of inflection and pitch shading, and his vocabulary of vocal sounds and effects, from the purest falsetto to grainy moaning rasps, were all frequent topics of conversation. And he was able to duplicate many of his singing techniques on electric guitar, using a metal slider to make the instrument “speak” in a quivering, voice-like manner.
His blues sounded simple, but it was so deeply rooted in the traditions of the Mississippi Delta that other singers and guitarists found it almost impossible to imitate it convincingly. “My blues looks so simple, so easy to do, but it’s not,” Mr. Waters said in a 1978 interview. “They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play.”
Cool
The music in the lobby of the Seattle Westin (and I believe in all Westin Hotels) is terrific. It’s a delightful collection of music from around the world.
On the negative side, I can’t find the exact playlists online.
The Maserati parked in the motor entrance was pretty cool, too. Maybe when I get relocated here in Seattle I’ll get a Maserati.
March 25th
… ought to be a national holiday. It’s Aretha Franklin’s birthday. The first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is 66 today.
Aretha Franklin is the undisputed “Queen of Soul” and the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She is a singer of great passion and control whose finest recordings define the term soul music in all its deep, expressive glory. As Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun observed, “I don’t think there’s anybody I have known who possesses an instrument like hers and who has such a thorough background in gospel, the blues and the essential black-music idiom.…She is blessed with an extraordinary combination of remarkable urban sophistication and of the deep blues feeling that comes from the Delta. The result is maybe the greatest singer of our time.”
Franklin was born in Memphis and grew up in Detroit, where her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, served as pastor at the New Bethel Baptist Church. One of the best-known religious orators of the day, Rev. Franklin was a friend and colleague of Martin Luther King. Aretha began singing church music at an early age, and recorded her first album, The Gospel Sound of Aretha Franklin, at fourteen. Her greatest influence was her aunt, Clara Ward, a renowned singer of sacred music. Beyond her family, Franklin drew from masters of the blues (Billie Holiday), jazz (Sarah Vaughn) and gospel (Mahalia Jackson), forging a contemporary synthesis that spoke to the younger generation in the new language of soul.
Aretha signed with Columbia Records in 1960 after A&R man John Hammond heard a demo she cut in New York. She remained at Columbia for six years, cutting ten albums that failed to fully tap into her capabilities. Paired with pop-minded producers, she dabbled in a variety of styles without finding her voice. Franklin was never averse to the idea of crossover music, being a connoisseur of pop and show tunes, but she needed to interpret them in her own uncompromising way. In Hammond’s words, “I cherish the albums we made together, but Columbia was a white company who misunderstood her genius.”
Jerry Wexler was waiting in the wings to sign Franklin when her contract with Columbia expired. With her switch to Atlantic in 1966, Aretha proceeded to revolutionize soul music with some of the genre’s greatest recordings. Her most productive period ran from 1967 through 1972. The revelations began with her first Atlantic single, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Loved You),” a smoldering performance that unleashed the full force of Franklin’s mezzo-soprano. Offering call-and-response background vocals on this and other tracks were Carolyn and Erma Franklin (Aretha’s sisters) and Cissy Houston.
Franklin’s greatest triumph – and an enduring milestone in popular music – was “Respect.” Her fervent reworking of the Otis Redding-penned number can now be viewed as an early volley in the women’s movement. …
Working closely with producer Jerry Wexler, engineer Tom Dowd and arranger Arif Mardin, Franklin followed her triumphant first album with recordings that furthered her claim to the title “Queen of Soul.” Her next three albums – Aretha Arrives (1967), Lady Soul (1968) and Aretha Now (1968) – included “Chain of Fools,” “Think,” “Baby, I Love You,” “Since You’ve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby),” and a soulful rendering of Carole King’s “A Natural Woman.”
I Never Loved A Man, Respect, Baby I Love You, A Natural Woman, Chain of Fools, Think, The House That Jack Built, I Say a Little Prayer, Bridge Over Troubled Water — all great, but for NewMexiKen give me Aretha Franklin’s version of You Are My Sunshine.
Elton John is 61 today. Gloria Steinem 74. Astronaut Jim Lovell (the Apollo 13 commander) 80.
Marcia Cross is 46 and Sarah Jessica Parker is 43.
Author Flannery O’Connor was born on this date in 1925.
When she was five, she became famous for teaching a chicken to walk backward; a national news company came to town to film the feat and then broadcast it all around the country. She said, “That was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. It’s all been downhill from there.”
. . .When she was 25, she was diagnosed with lupus, and she moved in with her mother on a farm in Georgia. The lupus left her so weak that she could only write two or three hours a day. She was fascinated by birds, and on the farm she raised ducks, geese, and peacocks. She traveled to give lectures whenever she felt well enough, and she went once to Europe where, because of a friend’s plea, she bathed in the waters at Lourdes, famed for their supposed healing powers.
She wrote two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), and two short-story collections, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965). She died at the age of 39 from complications of lupus.
She said, “The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.”
I’d marry Paul McCartney for $48 million
“Heather Mills has been awarded £24.3m in her divorce settlement with estranged husband Sir Paul McCartney.”
Saturday Night Live
We thought we’d go see Asra Nomani when Saturday evening began. Ms. Nomani is an Indian-born, American-raised Muslim. She was a friend of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter abducted and killed in Pakistan as portrayed in the film A Mighty Heart. (Angelina Jolie played Pearl’s wife Mariane. Archie Panjabi portrayed Ms. Nomani.)
Nomani is the author of Standing Alone is Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. She was scheduled to give a talk last evening on her life as a single, unmarried mother and a Muslim. Alas, she missed her flight to Albuquerque (luckily for her — a landing in Albuquerque is always an E-ticket ride; with yesterday’s winds it would have been more scary than thrilling.)
Plan B — Arlo Guthrie on his “Solo Reunion Tour” at the KiMo Theatre.
Fortunately there were about 15-20 tickets left when got to the box office less than an hour before show time. We ended up in row X, the back of the balcony, but there are no bad seats in the historic and beautiful KiMo (built 80 years ago in Pueblo Deco style as a movie and vaudeville theater; an attraction in itself).
Guthrie was wonderful. Not only did we get “Alice’s Restaurant,” but two hours of a wonderful selection from his repertoire of songs and stories. These included a couple of his dad’s songs, including “This Land Is Your Land” — just enough to give the evening a sense of wonderment and connection to the great folk music tradition of the mid-20th century.
Guthrie also quoted Marilyn Monroe — he said — for a philosophy of life: “When it comes to life’s decisions,” Marilyn supposedly said, “‘What the hell’ is usually the right answer.”
We thought Arlo Guthrie would be good. He was terrific. (And we were glad Ms. Nomani had missed her plane.)
The Definitive 200
“The Definitive 200 is a list of 200 ranked albums that every music lover should own … celebrating classic recordings by favorite iconic and contemporary artists.”
I believe I’d seen this list before but passed it by until today. NewMexiKen certainly likes music lists and maintains several in iTunes, but they are almost always lists of single tracks, not albums. That’s because I am a child of Top 40 radio and grew up listening to singles, not albums. Nevertheless The Definitive 200 is a pretty interesting list.
The list was compiled by NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, in cooperation with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
BEATLES – SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
PINK FLOYD – DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
MICHAEL JACKSON – THRILLER
LED ZEPPELIN – LED ZEPPELIN IV
U2 – JOSHUA TREE
ROLLING STONES – EXILE ON MAIN ST.
CAROLE KING – TAPESTRY
BOB DYLAN – HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED
BEACH BOYS – PET SOUNDS
NIRVANA – NEVERMIND
Soul
The other day I told you about Sashe Frere-Jones recommending Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (Amy Winehouse’s band). Here, see and hear for yourself.
Link to video via Brad DeLong.
Amy’s Circus
There’s a nice little review of Amy Winehouse by Sashe Frere-Jones in this week’s New Yorker.
“Winehouse’s music is reassuring to those old enough to remember the original and novel to those too young to know.”
Worth a click if only for the pic.
Update: Frere-Jones mentions in the article that Winehouse’s band, the Dap-Kings, also backs Sharon Jones. Go to iTunes and listen to a little of Ms. Jones. A great album for $5.99. She sings “This Land Is Your Land” like she means it.
Two legends
Enough of that politics crap.
Who would have thought these two legends ever performed a duet?
Thanks to J.D. for the link.
130 years ago today
Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph on this date in 1878 and ultimately music changed forever.
The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison’s work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape…This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb.” To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. …
The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877. There were some differences, however, between the two men’s ideas, and Cros’s work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it.
Source: Library of Congress
It didn’t look much like an iPod. Click image for larger version.
ASCAP
The writers’ strike is over. It’s just the latest in a long line of efforts to make certain creative artists received fair compensation.
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers was founded [on this date] in New York City in 1914. The founding membership included some of the most popular musicians of the day, including Irving Berlin, John Philip Sousa, and the composer Victor Herbert. The group was formed to protect intellectual property and help musically inclined writers make a living off their art. Technically, there were already laws on the books that should have done this, but many of them weren’t being enforced.
According to ASCAP lore, it was Victor Herbert who realized what a problem enforcement had become when he walked into a hotel one evening and heard one of his own songs being played. Knowing he hadn’t given permission or been paid for his music, Herbert set out to create a union that would stand up for the rights of musicians and composers.
The first office of the ASCAP was little more than a closet in New York’s Fulton Theater Building. The office furniture consisted of a table and a single, broken chair. Today, the organization has more than 300,000 members, and it collects and distributes millions in royalties.
Most hypocritical line of the day, so far
“I don’t think [Amy Winehouse] should have won [five Grammys]. I think it sends a bad message to our young people who are trying to get into this business, the ones who are trying to do it right and really trying to keep themselves together. We have to stop rewarding bad behavior.”
Natalie Cole, admitted former user of LSD, heroin and crack cocaine.
Idol thoughts while watching The Grammys
NewMexiKen wouldn’t want to dis a career as an archivist like I had, but it occurs to me every once in awhile — like while watching the Grammy Awards show — that I should have given more thought to being a rock god.
There was a group of about 20 British school kids (13-15 year olds) on the plane last night from Atlanta to Albuquerque. They were flying from London to Taos for a week’s skiing. Privileged brats. (Though the U.S. is cheap these days if we’ll let you in.) Personally, I’d have given a visa to Amy Winehouse instead.
(While I think of it, I saw Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke on DVD last week with Jill. This is Lee’s four part documentary on New Orleans and Katrina. After the first two parts, we wondered what could be added, but actually it’s pretty riveting over the better part of the full four parts. I strongly recommend you see the film — if only to better understand what happened in light of so much contemporary news that got it wrong and the overall chaos. It will make you very disappointed in our country.)
Aretha, honey, no one loves you more than I do, but you’ve got to consider Jenny Craig or something.
This photo has nothing to do with anything, but I suggest it’s worth seeing and reminding ourselves every day until November.
Dylan has been right about so much, and certainly not least with: “I was thinkin’ ’bout Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying.” She is something.
I saw an ad today for a wireless SD memory card for digital cameras. Move photo files from your camera to your computer via your home wireless network. 2GB for $100, so it’s pricey, but that will change. It’s called Eye-Fi.
I’d like to point out that the video for the Record of the Year was posted here nearly six weeks ago — Rehab.
The Day the Music Died
One day in early February 1959, a 13-year-old in New Rochelle, New York, cut open the stack of newspapers he was about to deliver and read that three rock ’n’ roll stars, Buddy Holly, J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and Ritchie Valens, had died in a plane crash in Iowa. The boy later said he felt “like someone had punched me in the face.” It was a feeling shared by many in America and around the world. Years later, in 1971, that paperboy, Don McLean, would write the song “American Pie,” which gave an enduring name to the event: the Day the Music Died.
Right up there with other “where were you when you heard” events for those of us of a certain age. Read all about it at AmericanHeritage.com.
Best line of the day, so far
“Amy Winehouse may want to attend the Grammys on Feb. 10, but it doesn’t look like she can go, go, go. She’s too busy going to rehab, to which she’d earlier said, ‘No, no, no,’ of course.”
Best line of the day, so far
Reported by Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen:
I’m finally reading Killing Yourself to Live, by Chuck Klosterman. He talks about how, just out of college, he got a job writing a column for the largest daily paper in North Dakota, which made him “a mini-celebrity in downtown Fargo.” Then he footnotes: “Which is kind of like being the hottest guy in the Traveling Wilburys.”
Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
… was born in Salzburg on this date in 1756. Theophilus—or Gottlieb—or Amadé means “loved by God.” As an adult Mozart signed Wolfgang Amadé Mozart or simply Mozart. In the family he was known as Wolfgangerl or Woferl.
A delightful Mozart web site is Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, complete with music while you browse. Among other things, the site has an analysis of the truth and fiction in the wonderful film Amadeus. (It’s “Amadeus, an apologia” when you open the Biography section. The site is structured in a way that prevents a direct link.)
Fiction or not, watching Amadeus seems like a wonderful way to celebrate Mozart’s birthday.
January 25th ought to be a damn national holiday
Today is Etta James’ birthday. Tell Mama, Etta James is 70 today.
Jerry Wexler, Atlantic Records’ legendary producer, describes Etta James as “the greatest of all modern blues singers…the undisputed Earth Mother.” Her raw, unharnessed vocals and hot-blooded eroticism has made disciples of singers ranging from Janis Joplin to Bonnie Raitt. James’ pioneering 1950s hits – “The Wallflower” and “Good Rockin’ Daddy” – assure her place in the early history of rock and roll alongside Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. In the Sixties, as a soulful singer of pop and blues diva compared with the likes of Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, James truly found her musical direction and made a lasting mark.
Miss James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, same year as Creedence, Cream, the Doors, Sly and the Family Stone, Van Morrison and Dick Clark if you still need a clue.
Alicia Keys is 27.
I was thinkin’ ’bout Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying
When she was born in Hell’s Kitchen, I was living down the line
I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee
— Bob Dylan, “Thunder on the Mountain”
Virginia Woolf was born on January 25th in 1882.
And, Happy Birthday to Rob, one of two official sons-in-law of NewMexiKen.
Headline of the day, so far
Amy checks into rehab – at last
They tried to make me go to rehab but I said ‘no, no, no’
Yes I’ve been black but when I come back you’ll know know know
I ain’t got the time and if my daddy thinks I’m fine
He’s tried to make me go to rehab but I won’t go go go
Changed her mind I guess.
Music to surf by
Regina Spektor, “Fidelity”
The music industry
IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.
By the way, Amazon.com sells DRM-free 256kbps MP3 files for 89 or 99 cents. It’s a good alternative to iTunes. The files are watermarked to show that they were bought from Amazon.
Grammy
Here, while I think about it, are the nominees for the top four Grammy awards. The awards show is Sunday, February 10. The CD Grammy Nominees 2008
Album Of The Year:
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (Foo Fighters)
These Days (Vince Gill)
River: The Joni Letters (Herbie Hancock)
Graduation (Kanye West)
Back To Black (Amy Winehouse)
Record Of The Year:
“Irreplaceable” (Beyoncé)
“The Pretender” (Foo Fighters)
“Umbrella” (Rihanna Featuring Jay-Z)
“What Goes Around…Comes Around” (Justin Timberlake)
“Rehab” (Amy Winehouse)
Song Of The Year:
“Before He Cheats,” John Kear & Chris Tompkins, songwriters (Carrie Underwood, artist)
“Hey There Delilah,” Tom Higgenson, songwriter (Plain White T’s, artist)
“Like A Star,” Corinne Bailey Rae, songwriter (Corinne Bailey Rae, artist)
“Rehab,” Amy Winehouse, songwriter (Amy Winehouse, artist)
“Umbrella,” Shawn Carter, Kuk Harrell, Terius “Dream” Nash & Christopher Stewart, songwriters (Rihanna Featuring Jay-Z, artist)
Best New Artist:
Feist
Ledisi
Paramore
Taylor Swift
Amy Winehouse