Category: Music

Johnny Mercer…

was born on this date in 1909.

Lyricist, composer and singer Johnny Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1909. He had hit songs with Bing Crosby in the late 1930s, with Jo Stafford (“Candy’) and on his own, especially “Accentuate the Positive.” On the radio he sang with Benny Goodman and had his own shows, including “Johnny Mercer’s Music Shop.” Greatly admired in the music industry both personally and for his intelligent, optimistic lyrics, he wrote or co-wrote over 1,100 songs, including “Blues in the Night,” “That Old Black Magic,” “One For My Baby, “Come Rain or Come Shine” (all with Harold Arlen); “Lazy Bones” and “Skylark” with Hoagy Carmichael; “I’m a Old Cowhand,” “I Remember You,” “P.S. I Love You,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “When a Woman Loves a Man,” “Too Marvelous for Words,” and “Fools Rush In.” He won Academy Awards for “The Atchison, Topeka and The Santa Fe” (1946, with Harry Warren), “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (1951, with Hoagy Carmichael), “Moon River’ (1961, with Henry Mancini) and “Days of Wine an Roses” (1962, with Mancini). As president and co-founder of Capitol Records, Mercer was instrumental in the early recording careers of such musicians as Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. He died in Los Angeles in 1976.

Source: www.johnnymercer.com

I hate to see that evening sun go down

W.C. Handy was born on this date in 1873. Handy was the first to write sheet music for the blues and for that reason is known as the Father of the Blues. Though associated with Memphis and Beale Street, Handy’s most famous song is St. Louis Blues (1914).

Click to hear Bessie Smith sing St. Louis Blues accompanied by Louis Armstrong — possibly the most influential recording in American music history (1925). (This is a RealPlayer file.)

NPR told the Handy and St. Louis Blues stories as part of the NPR 100. Click to hear the NPR report, which includes Handy’s own reminiscences and the complete Smith-Armstrong recording. (Also a RealPlayer file.)

W.C. Handy died in 1958.

Aaron Copland…

was born on this date in 1900.

Martha Graham: “When Aaron first presented me with the music its title was Ballet for Martha – simple, and as direct as the Shaker theme that runs through it. I took some words from the poetry of Hart Crane and retitled it Appalachian Spring. When Aaron appeared in Washington for a rehearsal, before the October 30, 1944, premiere, he said to me, “Martha, what have you named the ballet?”

And when I told him he asked, “Does it have anything to do with the ballet?”

“No”, I said, “I just like the title.”

More on the Fitzgerald

The ship was thirty-nine feet tall, seventy-five feet wide, and 729 feet long.

Lightfoot’s lyrics had one error — the load was bound for Detroit, not Cleveland.

There were waves as high as 30 feet that night; so high they were picked up on radar.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was only 17 miles from safe haven (Whitefish Point).

The captain and a crew of 28 were lost.

For more see S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald Online.

The Edmund Fitzgerald…

went down off Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior, on this date 28 years ago.

The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald
©1976 by Gordon Lightfoot and Moose Music, Ltd.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee.”
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the “Gales of November” came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side
coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang,
could it be the north wind they’d been feelin’?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
and a wave broke over the railing.
And ev’ry man knew, as the captain did too
’twas the witch of November come stealin’.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
when the Gales of November came slashin’.
When afternoon came it was freezin’ rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin’.
“Fellas, it’s too rough t’feed ya.”
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,
“Fellas, it’s bin good t’know ya!”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
and the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when ‘is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
if they’d put fifteen more miles behind ‘er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the “Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral.”
The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call “Gitche Gumee.”
“Superior,” they said, “never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!”

Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield Dies

The Righteous Brothers — blue-eyed soul. No one believed they were white. The name had something to do with that, but it was the sound that fooled everyone.

Bobby Hatfield had the higher voice; Bill Medley the lower. In the book accompanying the Phil Spector compilation, Back to Mono, songwriter Cynthia Weil recalls that:

After Phil, Barry [co-writer Barry Mann] and I finished the song, we took it over to The Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, who has the low voice, seemed to like the song. I remember Bobby Hatfield saying, “But what do I do while he’s singing the whole first verse?” and Phil said, “You can go directly to the bank!”

On AM radio in those days deejays didn’t like songs that lasted more than three minutes. Lovin’ Feelin’ is 3:46. On the label Spector printed 3:05. It was number one for two weeks in February 1965.

The Righteous Brothers had four other top five hits. Unchained Melody made it to number four; Ebb Tide to five. [You’re My] Soul and Inspiration was number one for three weeks in 1966. In 1974 Rock and Roll Heaven got to number three.

Hatfield was found dead in his hotel room yesterday. He was 63.

iTunes redux

Jill carefully excepts people close to her but otherwise says, “I don’t know if anything has ever made me as happy as the new iTunes store for Windows.”

[Update October 20, 2005: This may be what you’re looking for:

MyTunes Redux. No endorsement implied.]

iTunes

NewMexiKen took a step further into the digital revolution today buying New York City the album by Norah Jones & The Peter Malick Group from Apple iTunes for $6.93 plus tax. (Convinced he needed it by hearing one of the tracks over the closing credits of The Runaway Jury the other evening.)

Download went quickly despite foolishly starting it with a wireless connection (what with all those solar flares and all).

I can now listen to the album on my PC (as I am at the moment), copy it to my iPod to take with me wherever and/or copy it to a CD.

The album is $10.99 at Amazon.com. There are only seven tracks or about 30 minutes of music on this particular album.

The Blues

A new PBS series, The Blues, premieres tonight and runs each night this week.

Under the guiding vision of Executive Producer Martin Scorsese, seven directors will explore the blues through their own personal styles and perspectives. The films in the series are motivated by a central theme: how the blues evolved from parochial folk tunes to a universal language.

The seven-part film series includes:
Feel Like Going Home by Martin Scorsese
The Soul of a Man by Wim Wenders
The Road to Memphis by Richard Pearce
Warming by the Devil’s Fire by Charles Burnett
Godfathers and Sons by Marc Levin
Red, White & Blues by Mike Figgis
Piano Blues by Clint Eastwood

According to Scorsese, “Our goal never was to produce the definitive work on the blues. It was, from the start, to create highly personal and impressionistic films as seen through the eyes of the most creative directors around with a passion for this music.”

Tribute to Johnny Cash

Howard Owens at Blogcritics.org:

Johnny Cash is such a complete man. He is the prototypical all-American male. He out John Waynes John Wayne, is more rugged than Clint Eastwood, has more class than Frank Sinatra, makes Ronald Reagan look like a flag burner, cares for the downtrodden and exploited more than Michael Moore and is no less faithful than Billy Graham.

He is a complete and purely American character because he is a ball of contradictions. He is patriotic, but protests war and won’t forget his country’s faults; he supports law and order, but entertains prisoners; he is God-fearing, but has abused his body and drifted and strayed; he is an artist, but for most of his career has preferred simplicity over ornament; he doesn’t give a damn about what you think about him, but has carefully crafted his own image; and, for a man who has spent his life in the adoration of the stage light, he is humble and polite to the people he meets.

MTV mouth-to-mouth resuscitation

“Thursday’s big make-out scene [at the MTV Video Music Awards] between Madonna and Britney Spears (and Christina Aguilera, which, tragically, didn’t get the same coverage) lasted only about a half-second. In that short time, men all over America lurched from their chairs. Mothers moved to shield the eyes of youngsters. Frat boys high-fived. Fathers reached for their TiVo remotes.” Tony Hicks in the Contra Costa Times.

Country lyrics

  • “Cause he’s gonna live forever if the good die young” — Tracy Lawrence
  • “You can’t help how you don’t feel” — Lonestar
  • “I’ve always been crazy, but it’s kept me from going insane” — Waylon Jennings
  • “I’m much too young to feel this damn old” — Garth Brooks
  • “I’m a little past Little Rock but a long way from over you” — Lee Ann Womack
  • “It’s too hot to fish, too hot for golf, and too cold at home” — Mark Chesnutt
  • “She said: ‘I’m gonna’ hire a wino
    to decorate our home,
    So you’ll feel more at ease here,
    and you won’t have to roam.
    We’ll take out the dining room table,
    and put a bar along that wall.
    And a neon sign, to point the way,
    to our bathroom down the hall.'” — David Frizzell