[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
19 plays
“Poor Everybody Else” by Michelle Lee [1973]
Random Music History Song of the Day
“Poor Everybody Else” comes from the 1973 Broadway musical Seesaw. The show’s music was written by Cy Coleman, a major contributor to the the modern extension of the Great American Songbook. Although the show was nominated for two Tony Awards (best musical and best score), both its writer/producer and its lead actress had bigger successes in their careers. Michelle Lee, the singer on this post, is more famous for her role in the 1968 blockbuster film The Love Bug while producer Michael Bennett’s next project was Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical A Chorus Line.
The Breeders - Last Splash (image found here)
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
20 plays
“Cannonball” by The Breeders [1993]
Random Music History Song of the Day
In 1992, with the Pixies on a permanent break, Kim Deal was able to focus completely on her work with The Breeders, a band that had been a side project for her and Tonya Donelly of Throwing Muses since 1988. In the next two years, The Breeders opened for Nirvana on tour and released their second full-length album, Last Splash. Among the best songs Deal wrote in this period was “Cannonball.” Mostly due to the catchy repetitive bass and guitar lines, the song rose all the way to #2 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts. “Cannonball” remains The Breeders’ most famous song.
Benny Goodman Quartet (image found here)
Seriously, guys. Does anyone know why some of the audio posts automatically include the artwork that is associated with them (the artwork I have with the song on iTunes), but other don’t (I have artwork for these, too!)?
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
16 plays
“Tea for Two” by the Benny Goodman Quartet [1937]
Random Music History Song of the Day
Imagine: It’s Spring 1937. Swing is quickly becoming America’s favorite music. You go to a show at the Paramount Theater in New York to see The King of Swing, Benny Goodman, perform recent hits like “Stompin’ at the Savoy” and “Get Happy,” songs you had first heard on your local NBC radio station performed live by Goodman and His Orcchestra from Los Angeles, Chicago, or some other far off city.
During the show’s intermission, most of the Orchestra takes a break. Four musicians - including Goodman - remain on stage. Already surprised by the make-up of Goodman’s Orhcestra, you are completely shocked by the look of this small group. Half of them are black! Then again, the whole group sounds pretty damn good, so you set that topic aside until after the show, when you discuss it at length with your spouse and friends. Among other songs you heard during the “intermission” was the quartet’s rendition of “Tea for Two.”
“Tea for Two” was originally written by Vincent Youmans (music) and Irving Caesar (lyrics) for the 1925 musical No, No Nanette. Here, the Goodman Quartet turns this Great American Songbook standard into a chamber jazz masterpiece. Goodman takes the melody while Lionel Hampton (gasp!, a black man) weaves a countermelody on vibraphone. Gene Krupa bangs away at his drums (his style had to be an influence on musicians of both races leading up to rock and roll!). Finally, pianist Teddy Wilson - another black man - provides only backing chords with the exception of his solo.
Benny Goodman led jazz into a new era in the late 30s. In the span of less than four years, he became the face of swing era, incorporated small group arrangements into big band shows, introduced mixed-racial groups to white audiences, and finally, in January of 1938, took jazz, once considered low-art, to Carnegie Hall for the first time. Finally, the clarinet (the instrument I played - along with saxophone in some jazz groups) was never as popular as during the early Swing era (see also Artie Shaw and Woody Herman).
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
40 plays
friendssharingmusic:
Woody Guthrie - Do-Re-Mi
Though he’d previously worked in broadcast radio and other live media, it wasn’t until 1940 that Woody Guthrie made his first series of recorded music and interviews. Folklorist Alan Lomax was his interviewer, and Lomax submitted several hours worth of recordings to the US Library of Congress.
At the end of this track, you can hear Lomax reciting the exact date of the recording— March 21, 1940— for the US Department of Interior’s catalog.
Lomax, whose entire collection can be heard in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, traveled the world for years, capturing glimpses of traditional music, stories, and lifestyles that would have otherwise been unchronicled and forgotten. You can read more about him, and his work, here.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to John and Alan Lomax for their work recording both white and black folk music all over America, including in numerous prisons. Most of our music sprung from those origins.
Doves - Lost Souls (image found here)
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
16 plays
“Lost Souls” by Doves [2000]
Random Music History Song of the Day
The title track to Doves first LP gives away Doves Brit-pop influences, not unexpected since the band hails from Manchester. The forlorn vocals sound a bit like Damon Albarn on some of Blur’s similar songs, while the music of “Lost Souls” is a mix of an Oasis downer-ballad and a Pulp dirge (This Is Hardcore as a direct influence?). Doves make the sound their own on their first few EPs and on this album. They continued to grow, becoming the best Brit-pop band of this decade (well, Oasis sputtered and returned fairly strong, but they will always be remembered as a 90s band).
