music Archives - Page 97 of 265 - Ramblin' with Roger

An American album, as it were

U.S. Blues

Back in the early days of this blog, i.e., 2005, a bunch of bloggers – Fred Hembeck, Lefty Brown, Greg Burgas, Johnny Bacardi, Thom Wade, Eddie Mitchell, Gordon Dymowski, Tom Collins, and several others across the country- created a series of mixed CD exchanges. We’d burn collections of music and mail them to each other. Kind of quaint, eh? This was one of the earliest I created, if not the first. It’s an American album of sorts.

US: American Roulette – Robbie Robertson. From his first solo album, post-The Band.
NY: New York, New York – Ryan Adams, who has the same birthday as Bryan Adams, November 5.
NJ: Atlantic City – The Band, post-Robbie Robertson, cover Bruce Springsteen.
PA: Allentown – Billy Joel.
MD: Baltimore – Peter Case.

DC: The Bourgeois Blues – Taj Mahal, written by Leadbelly
VA: I Believe – Blessed Union of Souls.
NC: Take the Train to Charlotte – Fiddlin’ John Carson, one of my go-to songs.
SC: Darlington County – Bruce Springsteen.
GA: Oh, Atlanta – Alison Krauss.

FL: Gator on the Lawn – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. From the box set.
AL: Alabamy Home – the Gotham Stompers, an instrumental from “1930s Jazz- The Small Combos.”
MS: The Jazz Fiddler – the Mississippi Sheiks, from the “Roots & Blues” box set, as is NC.
LA: Down at the Twist & Shout – Mary Chapin Carpenter. My problem with her is that I can never remember where I file her, under Car or Ch.
TX: That’s Right (You’re Not from Texas) – Lyle Lovett

More states

So, I guess I created two or three more collections, but I can’t find them, alas. Off the top, what else would I pick?

AZ: By the Time I Get to Phoenix – Glen Campbell or maybe Isaac Hayes
CA: Goin’ to California – Led Zeppelin (and you thought I’d go with the Beach Boys!)
DE: Delaware Slide– George Thorogood & The Destroyers, though I did not own that album at the time
ID: Private Idaho – B-52’s
IL: Goin’ to Chicago – Jimmy Rushing On Vocals With The Benny Goodman Orchestra

MO: Kansas City – Wilbert Harrison
MT: Montana – Frank Zappa
NV: Leaving Las Vegas – Sheryl Crow
OK: Oklahoma Hills – Arlo Guthrie, written by his father Woody
OR: Portland, Oregon – Loretta Lynn with Jack White

What would you pick, either in lieu of my choices or filling in the blanks? I can think of two slots for John Denver, and several for Springsteen.

And finally, back to US: U.S. Blues – The Harshed Mellows at 11:05, from the Deadicated album.

April rambling: Clorox Chewables

Virtual choirs abound

FILL OUT THE 2020 CENSUS! For you data geeks: Cornell’s Program on Applied Demographics – Intro to Website.

Keep checking out Notes From The Pandemic, a regular newsletter.

Is the Pandemic Expediting Our Digital Burnout?

The problem with thinking you know more than the experts.

Why We Believe Obvious Untruths.

The Stephen Bissette Shoot Interview! A Career-Spanning Chronicle!

An innocent man spent 46 years in prison. And made a plan to kill the man who framed him.

The Lawyer Whose Clients Didn’t Exist.

Two-Time Tony Award Winner Brian Dennehy Has Passed Away at 81.

Clear and Vivid® is a series of Alan Alda’s spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country.

Vanity Fair interview with Chris Matthews.

The Throwback League is a once a week podcast that’s essentially a March Madness-style tournament played out over 48 weeks. The World Series winners between 1974-2006 all make the tournament, and 16 at large pennant winners too. On Hollywood & Levine, sportscaster Josh Lewin joins Ken to discuss the podcast.

Take The Intelligence Test That Thomas Edison Gave to Job Seekers.

Why the Nazi Party Loved Decaf Coffee.

A Commercial, Sandwiched Between Lines of Dialogue on ‘Hawaii Five-0’, referenced in this podcast.

IMPOTUS

‘Break Glass Moment for Our Democracy’: Experts Sound Alarm Over Plan to Purge 7 Inspectors General.

Cartoon: Trump vs. the Postal Service.

The most dangerous President in history.

Disinfectant Manufacturers Warn Consumers Not to Heed “Injection” Remark and CoronavirusMemes – Clorox Chewables!

“It (freedom) ain’t something permanent like rocks and hills. It’s like manna; you just got to keep on gathering it fresh every day. If you don’t one day you’re going to find you ain’t got none no more.”
– Man, and the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston, spoken by her fictionalized Moses

Now I Know

Raiders of the Lost Journal and The Dot in Your Kitchen You’ve Probably Never Noticed and Kings and Queens are Royals. But What’s a Jack? and The Pigeons Who Needed a Proctologist and The Singer Who Couldn’t Really Sing and Meet Her Royal Not-Quite-Highness.

MUSIC

What if doing the Hokey Pokey isn’t what it’s all about?

The Liar Tweets Tonight.

Down to the River – Virtual Choir.

1812 Overture, with chorus! of Tchaikovsky.

Coverville 1305: Tribute to John Prine and Ritchie Blackmore Cover Story and 1306: This Day in Covers: 1980.

Spanish Guitars and Night Plazas – Loreena McKennitt.

The Rainbow Connection – Kermit.

For What It’s Worth – Young@Heart (Zoom Rehearsal COVIDeo).

Long May You Run– Neil Young.

Piano Sonata No. 18 (Op. 31, No. 3) of Beethoven.

A Satisfied Mind – Pete Drake from this album my grandfather brought home from work.

A completely mad handbell arrangement of The Hallelujah Chorus; another Hallelujah Chorus.

I Go Swimming – Peter Gabriel.

In resurrectione tua – Taizé virtual choir.

Finlandia by Jean Sibelius — Cantus.

Psalm 53 Sung in Aramaic for Pope Francis by Georgians.

Animation: Johnny Cash on gospel music

Tonight at Toads – Blotto, 1982.

The Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic.

Why Do We Even Listen to New Music?

Singing parts; cream of tartar

the Pips

lemon merengue pie Carla, who I’ve known since high school choir – was she an alto? – decided she needed to know stuff:

Ok… when you sing alone… do you mostly sing the melody, or do you sing your “part?”

Almost always, in four-part music that I’m familiar with, it’s the bass line. In pop music, it’s usually the Pips response, not the Gladys Knight lead. On Lola (Kinks) or The Boxer (S&G), it’d be the high harmony, not the melody. I just hear them better.

To that end, I can sing a higher pitch in harmony than in melody. This makes no physical sense, so it must be mental. We had a church play in March, Once On This Island. I hated singing the high parts in my solo; it made me anxious. But the harmony, I absolutely LOVED doing. Harmony almost always I find relaxing.

No lemon merengue pie?

She also wants to know – those people from Binghamton, NY always inquisitive, especially when the extended family runs the Little Venice restaurant:
OK here is another question…. why are you unfamiliar with cream of tartar? You never make lemon merengue pie? Or soufflés?

I think I’ve made lemon merengue pie exactly once in my life. To the best of my recollection, I’ve NEVER made a soufflé. Or snickerdoodle cookies, which also can use cream of tartar.

But that’s about it. WHY have cream of tartar when it has such limited use? It’s not like cinnamon or nutmeg or any number of other spices I’ve used regularly. AND there are reasonable substitutes.

Now, there was a period in the 1980s, I was into making pumpkin pies, and even baking cookies. And it wasn’t always in the autumn. But it wasn’t for my own consumption. It was either for a food pantry or some benefit auction. I don’t even like eating pumpkin pie as much as I like apple. Or lemon merengue. But they were easier to make; no top crust.

Since I got married, I almost never make pies or cookies. My wife is WAY better at it. I’m not all that interested in doing things only so-so. And frankly, if I were to make them, I’d want to eat them, and I don’t need to do that.

The Depression of #1 hits: 1930

Sir Duke

There was a recent JEOPARDY question about the first full year of the Great Depression. That would of course be 1930. There were a series of bank failures. By 1932, the nation’s income was cut in half. That could never happen now, right?

And the music business took a real hit. According to A Century of Music, the record industry went through almnost a total collapse. In 1927, there were 140 million discs sold. Five years later, it was down to six million.

Still, there were a couple of songs that you will know.

Stein Song (University of Maine) – Rudy Vallee. Ten weeks at #1. I saw Vallee in the 1968 movie The Night They Raided Minsky’s in a Binghamton cinema.

Dancing with Tears in My Eyes – Nat Shilkret with Frank Munn, vocals. Seven weeks at #1.

Body and Soul – Paul Whiteman; Jack Fulton, vocals. Six weeks at #1. Libby Holman went to #3 with this song in 1930.

Little White Lies – Waring’s Pennsylvanians. Vocal refrain by Clare Hanlon & the Three Girl Friends. Six weeks at #1. When I was in glee club in high school, a lot of the arrangements were by Fred Waring. This song went to #3 in 1930 by Shilkret/Munn.

You’re Driving Me Crazy (What Did I Do?) – Guy Lombardo, with Carmen Lombardo on vocals. Four weeks at #1. Gaetano Alberto “Guy” Lombardo (1902-1077) was a Canadian bandleader who was Mr. New Years Eve from 1956 on TV, and going back to 1929 on the radio.

Three Little Words – Duke Ellington and the Rhythm Boys. Three weeks at #1. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899 – 1974) was “an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than six decades.”

Again?

When It’s Springtime in the Rockies – Ben Selvin. Three weeks at #1.

Chant of the Jungle – Roy Ingraham. Three weeks at #1.

Happy Days Are Here Again – Benny Meroff, with Dusty Rhodes on vocals. Three weeks at #1. In the same year, Leo Reisman/Larry Levin’s version went to #3.

When It’s Springtime in the Rockies – Hilo Hawaiian Orchestra, with Frank Luther and Carson Robison, vocals. Two weeks at #1.

If I Could Be With You One Hour To-night – McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, George Thomas, vocals. Two weeks at #1.

Happy Days Are Here Again -Ben Selvin. Two weeks at #1, yet I can’t find a recording. This song also went to #3 in 1930 by Leo Reisman/Larry Levin.

Puttin’ On the Ritz – Harry Richman. One week at #1. This also went to #4 in 1983 by Taco.

The Man from the South (with a Big Cigar in His Mouth) – Ted Weems with Art Jarrett, vocal.

Paul Robeson, Negro singer

“Golden Age”?

On page 13 of the Binghamton (NY) Press from Wednesday, May 5, 1926 is this headline: BASS-BARITONE TO SING SPIRITUALS. But it’s the subhead that caught my attention. “Paul Robeson, Negro, Will Be Hear In Concert Friday Night.”

He was to appear at Binghamton Central High School, my alma mater. The article extensively quotes the March 3 New Republic. “A sort of sublimation of what the negro may be in the Golden Age hangs about him and imparts to his appearances an atmosphere of affection and delight that is seldom felt in an American audience.”

This is hardly the first I’ve read about the “Negro” X recently. The “Negro girl,” the “Negro pastor” show up in articles about Raymond Cone and my grandmother, Agatha Walker, e.g. It is a reflection of a time when being white was normative. Anyone not described as a “Negro” or whatever they called Native Americans (likely Indians) and Asians (Oriental?) were assumed to be white.

But what the heck was the New Republic alluding to in terms of the “Golden Age”? Is it a reference to the Harlem Renaissance? Or perhaps the Golden Age of Black Business, when “leading black capitalists . . . reflected their success within a black economy, which developed in response to the nation’s rise of two worlds of race.”

Red Summer

This in spite of the white-on-black violence of 1919’s Red Summer, which most people, a century later never heard about. Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against Racist Mobs. So “Golden age”… hmmm.

Incidentally, I was not looking for the Paul Robeson article. It sits just above a piece I was interested in. “A.M.E. Church Seeking $2,000 for Parsonage.” It described the three-day bazaar to be held to raise funds for the dwelling of one Rev. Raymond Cone. “Mayor Clarence J. Cook will the opening address.”

I have learned a great deal this past year about cultural norms by reading old newspapers. The listing of almost every church service, wedding and funeral, with the name of the preacher and often performers of special music. It would be as easy to fall down the rabbit hole on Newspapers.com as it would to overdo on Instagram or Facebook.