music Archives - Page 47 of 261 - Ramblin' with Roger

1933 #1s: Stormy Weather

Forty-Second Street

There was stormy weather politically in 1933. From A Century of Pop by Joel Whitburn: “Adolph Hitler’s rise to power as Chancellor of Germany coincided with FDR’s inauguration.”

Meanwhile, the Great Depression raged on. “Mirroring the national economy, the record industry underwent an almost total collapse.” It sold only “six million discs in 1932 – compared to the peak of 140 million just five years earlier. The opportunity to hear all popular songs on the radio for free… also contributed to the desperate slump.”

The Last Round-Up – George Olsen with Joe Morrison on vocals (Columbia), nine weeks at #1

Stormy Weather – Leo Reisman with Harold Arlen on vocals (Victor), eight weeks at #1, from Cotton Club Parade. Arlen co-wrote it with Ted Kohler.

Love Is The Sweetest Thing– Ray Noble with Al Bowlly, vocals (Victor), five weeks at #1. From the film Say It With Music

Lazybones – Ted Lewis (Columbia), four weeks at #1. Purportedly written in only 20 minutes by Hoagy Carmichael and young Johnny Mercer.

You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me– Guy Lombardo with Bing Crosby, vocals (Brunswick), four weeks at #1. From the movie musical Forty-Second Street

Forty-Second Street – Don Bestor with Dudley Mecum, vocals (Victor), three weeks at #1. From the movie musical of the same name.

Stormy Weather (Keeps Rain’ All The Time) – Ethel Waters (Brunswick), three weeks at #1

The Last Round-Up – Guy Lombardo with Carmen Lombardo, vocals (Brunswick), three weeks at #1. From The New Ziegfeld Follies.

Did You Ever See A Dream Walking? – Eddy Duchin with Lew Sherwood, vocals. (Victor), three weeks at #1. From the film Sitting Pretty.

Shadow Waltz– Bing Crosby (Brunswick), two weeks at #1. From the movie Gold Diggers of 1933.

Repeating Top 3 hits

The charts showed a lot of repeating songs. Stormy Weather also got to #2 by Guy and Carmen Lombardo and #4 as an instrumental by Duke Ellington. The Last Round-Up reached #2 by Don Bestor/Neal Buckley and separately by Bing Crosby. Did You Ever See A Dream Walking? reached #2 with the Lombardos.

Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf made it to #2 by Don Bestor with Florence Case, Frank Sherry, and Charles Yontz, vocals. It got to #3 by Victor Young. Yes, the song from the 1933 Disney cartoon The Three Little Pigs was reused often.

Finally, Shuffle Off To Buffalo reached #2 with two different recordings: Hal Kemp/Skinny Ennis and Don Bestor/Maurice Cross. It was also from Forty-Second Street

Some fool songs

Plato

It being April 1st, I thought I’d play some fool songs. There are a LOT of fool songs if you Google lists of them. I’ve heard and mostly own these, but it’s hardly complete even by those criteria.

Fools in Love – Joe Jackson (1979). “Are there any creatures more pathetic?” I related to this a lot last century.

Why Do Fools Fall In Love – Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers (#6 pop, #5 RB in 1956). Joni Mitchell covered this live.

Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool – Connie Francis #1 for two weeks pop in 1960)

The Fool – Sanford Clark (#7 pop in 1956)- I couldn’t remember the artist’s name, but I indeed remembered the song. The guitar riff by Al Casey was based on Howlin’ Wolf’s song Smoke Stack Lightnin, released the same year.

1962

What Kind Of Fool Am I – Sammy Davis, Jr. This song charted four times in 1962, which must have been a foolish year. Davis (#17 pop, #6 adult contemporary), Anthony Newley (#85 pop), Robert Goulet (#89 pop), and Vic Damone (#131 pop)

Fool for You – the Impressions (#22 pop, #3 RB in 1968)

Fool on the Hill – Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 (#6 pop, #1 for six weeks AC in 1968). Of course, this was originally in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour movie

Fooled Around And Fell In Love– Elvin Bishop (#3 for two weeks pop in 1976. Mickey Thomas, later of Jefferson Starship/Starship, was on lead vocals

What A Fool Believes – Doobie Brothers (#1 pop, #22 AC, #72 RB in 1979)

Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who (#15 pop in 1971). Of course, its chart action doesn’t begin to cover the song’s significance.

Chain Of Fools – Aretha Franklin (#2 pop for two weeks, #1 for four weeks RB in 1968); this is the album version

Everybody Plays The Fool – The Main Ingredient (#3 pop, #25 AC, #2 for three weeks RB in 1972). I’ve heard the Aaron Neville version a lot in the Hannaford supermarket

Ship of Fools

There are a lot of items in popular culture using the title Ship of Fools, including some gaming devices. A 1965 movie features Janet Leigh. The eponymous website is “‘for people who prefer their religion disorganized,’ says the Ship’s editor and designer, Simon Jenkins. ‘Our aim is to help Christians be self-critical and honest about the failings of Christianity, as we believe honesty can only strengthen faith.'” Then there’s a book by someone who I think IS a fool.

The Wikipedia page describes the term: The ship of fools “is an allegory, originating from Book VI of Plato‘s Republic, about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system not based on expert knowledge.”

Ship Of Fools (Save Me From Tomorrow)- World Party (#27 in 1987)

Ship of Fools – Robert Plant (#84 in 1988)

Ship Of Fools– Erasure (1988)

Ship Of Fools– Grateful Dead (1974)

March rambling: something dumb

1099-K

“Good morning, friends. That awful feeling of shame and panic when you remember saying something dumb years ago is your nervous system trying to protect you from perceived danger. Try telling your body, ‘Thank you for wanting to protect me. We’re safe now. It’s okay to let it go.'” from Good Morning, Friends: Gentle Suggestions for the Start of Your Day. I have been there!

US Secretary of State Denounces Uganda’s New ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill

‘Legal Lynching’: ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws reflect legacy of white supremacist vigilantism in Deep South

“A right-wing judge takes aim at medication abortions“

Book ban attempts hit a record high in 2022, the American Library Association says

Teaching on Eggshells

Devin Stone, the “Legal Eagle,” explains the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege and how it applies to djt’s lawyers

Ten True Stories of Dutch Colonial Slavery

Can the anti-woke mob define ‘woke’?

4-year-old girl shot dead by 3-year-old sister with semi-automatic pistol

CULCHA

Can Movie Theaters Survive? It’s the Most Enduring Question In Hollywood

Stephen Sondheim’s Final Musical to Premiere Off-Broadway This Fall

Aaron Sorkin Reveals He Had a Stroke Last November: “A Loud Wake-Up Call”

How Toy Companies Bribe YouTube Channels

Artificial Intelligence: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

These Are the World’s Happiest Countries in 2023. Finland is #1, and the US is #15.

An 85-year Harvard study on happiness found the No. 1 retirement challenge

Connection Between Alcohol and Sleep

How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain

What Does Blue Light Do to Your Eyes?

Why green might be the most important color for humans. But of course!

Understanding Your Form 1099-K. “The law is not intended to track personal transactions such as sharing the cost of a car ride or meal, birthday or holiday gifts, or paying a family member for a household bill.”

Mark Evanier’s Tales From The DMV

Parroting

Former Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder, a pioneer for women’s rights, dies at 82

The indomitable spirit of Willis Reed. I watched that Game 7 NBA Finals game in 1970 on TV. It was remarkable. He died at the age of 80.

‘Fosbury Flop’ high jumper Dick Fosbury dies at 76

John Jakes, Author of the Miniseries-Spawning ‘North and South’ Trilogy, Dies at 90

The attempts to make a modern Little Nemoin Slumberland film

Now I Know: The Slave Who Shipped Himself to Freedom and A Cute Way to Prevent Traffic Deaths and Why Movie Theaters Have Red Seats and The Problem With Living in the Center of America and I Guess You Could Say They… Excel and The Little Bit of P-Word in the Coke and This Cupcake Recipe Isn’t The Bomb

MUSIC

Please keep voting for the niece Rebecca Jade at the San Diego Music Awards in categories 20, 21, 25, 26, and 27. Also for Peter Sprague in category 4 for an album that features Rebecca.

Dry Bones – Delta Rhythm Boys. A recent Old Testament scripture was Ezekiel 37:1-14. By coincidence, I was playing that week the soundtrack of the movie Rain Man, which included a version of Dry Bones by the Delta Rhythm Boys, though not precisely that take.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture

Let It Burn from Paradise Square the Musical, featuring Tony Award Winner Joaquina Kalukango

Tchaikovsky’s Symphonic Fantasia, The Tempest

Life’s a F***ing Fantasy for Santos – Randy Rainbow

Coverville 1436: Cover Stories for Poison and Sugar Ray

Woody Woodpecker theme

Music from the Emerald Isle

What’s The Name of That Song from Sesame Street

Franz Von Suppe’s Light Calvary

Songs tied to a particular time and place

Turn off the lights

Here are yet more songs tied to a particular time and place. These aren’t necessarily my favorite songs, but they are resonant.

I have great affection for the Pointer Sisters, especially That’s A Plenty, an eclectic collection that’s a desert album. But the piece de la resistance is the last tune, Love In Them There Hills, a Gamble/Huff piece. You should listen to it sitting or lying in the dark. It’s the hypnotic middle section, “a cosmic, free-flowing funk jam,” that makes it.

I heard Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin in San Diego while hanging out with my sister’s friend Donald. Maybe it’d be a regional SoCal hit, I thought. What do I know? It went to #1 for two weeks in 1988.

About a year later, I saw McFerrin on NBC’s Today show. He was performing a couple of songs from the album Medicine Man with the acapella group Voicestra. I so loved it that I bought a half dozen copies of the collection and gave it to my father, my sister Leslie, probably our new church choir director Eric, and others. Eric arranged The 23rd Psalm for choir members Bob, Tim, and me to sing My Bible group just read Hebrews 12; the lyrics in v. 10-13 show up in the song Discipline.

On a car trip to Cooperstown, one of my office mates rediscovered This Must Be The Place by Talking Heads. In retrospect, this makes me melancholy.

The broom

My significant other at the time and I used to dance to Harvest Moon by Neil Young. The song still makes me incredibly sad.

Someone To Watch Over Me by Linda Ronstadt evokes another failed relationship.

You might not be surprised by the number of times people sang to me the Weird Al Yankovic song I Lost On Jeopardy after November 1998. Almost EVERYONE eventually loses on Jeopardy eventually!

When I was wooing my spouse, I put together a mixed CD. Put A Little Faith In Me by John Hiatt was the linchpin of the collection. Given our track record, it was understandable that our wedding song was So our wedding song was At Last by Etta James.

My daughter was obsessed with the musical Hamilton when it first came out. She knew the lyrics by heart because she played the music repeatedly, as I noted here. The first song, Alexander Hamilton, is one of the best first songs in a musical.

At church, my daughter was in several musicals. Some were pastiche, while others were actual junior versions of productions. Several songs stick in my mind. I’ll note Glory by John Legend and Common from the movie Selma. The church choir performed some of the choral bits while the kids did the rap parts. It was surprisingly effective.

More birthday month music

Depressive Quartet

Here’s more of my birthday month music celebration. These are songs tied to a particular time and place, or occasionally multiple times and places, in my life.

For about a year, c. 1965, I tried to learn to play the piano. I went to the home of Marcheta Hamlin, our church organist. She was patient, but it just wasn’t in my skill set. One time she wanted me to play Minuet in G major, then attributed to J.S. Bach, but now considered to be written by Christian Petzold. She said it was like A Lover’s Concerto by The Toys. I didn’t know the song at all then and may not have until The Supremes covered it the following year.

After I broke up with my girlfriend in May 1971, I visited my friend Steve in Poughkeepsie. He was playing the Billy Preston album That’s The Way God Planned It, produced by George Harrison. The first song is Do What You Want. I LOVE that song. Within a year, I saw Billy live in Elting Gym at SUNY New Paltz, which I was attending.

In my freshman year, I was in Scudder Hall, probably in my dorm room, when I determined that When You Dance, I Can Really Love by Neil Young was Our Song for The Okie and me. This track, and the Billy Preston tune, have something in common. They start much slower than they end.

Help Me by Joni Mitchell defines a rebound relationship that didn’t last, and a concert went awry.

My real understanding of apartheid in South Africa started with Biko from Peter Gabriel’s third album. BTW, that whole collection, sometimes called Melt, is a desert album of mine. I have a copy of it in German.

Again

My tenth high school reunion in 1981 was a bit of a dud. But a bunch of us went over to my friend C’s house. My friend Karen played the new Rolling Stones single Start Me Up about once an hour between midnight and 6 a.m.

Romance was hit or miss in the day. I developed a Depressive Quartet of songs. I wrote about them here. Sweet Bitter Love by Aretha Franklin, her best track on Columbia. My First Night Alone Without You by Jane Olivor. Gone Away – Roberta Flack; if I WANT to cry, this song always works. Stay With Me by Lorraine Ellison. If I needed to feel worse: Remove This Doubt by The Supremes; Down So Low by Linda Ronstadt; Can We Still Be Friends by Todd Rundgren.

I was riding back from somewhere late at night in 1983 with my roommate Mark, a part-time disc jockey at my favorite radio at the time, Q104. Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Yes came on the radio, and we mused whether the song would have any commercial success. I had my doubts.

More next week.