The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
I’ve mentioned this many times, but for several days after 9-11, I was unable to listen to music at all. I am constantly surrounded by music, but for those three or four days, I just couldn’t.
Finally I found my way back to music, and the first piece I listened to was Elegy by Mark Camphouse. I consider this a masterpiece.
I had two t-shirts way back in high school and college. I wore them to death. The label was “Caribbean Soul”, and they featured nautical art and some words that were evocative, even if I honestly didn’t know where they were from. It took me a few years but I wore those poor shirts to the point of unwearability.
Then, in 1998, while shopping in Disney World while celebrating our first anniversary, I found new versions of those same shirts. The art was slightly different, but somehow better. I bought them both, and I have kept those shirts in very good condition ever since. I only wear them a handful of times a year and am careful about washing them. That’s how it works, you see.
Here’s the back of one of the shirts.
I don’t know when I realized that those words are actually lyrics from a Jimmy Buffett song, but that did come as rather a shock.
I wasn’t a big Jimmy Buffett fan for a long time. I didn’t have anything against him, really–it was just that he didn’t really speak to me directly. Or so I thought. It’s easy to think that of an artist when they have a huge body of work that somehow only ever gets reduced down to one or two songs. In a way, Jimmy Buffett was rather like Van Morrison for me, in reverse: I knew that Van Morrison is a genius song-writer and singer with a huge and rich body of work, that somehow gets reduced down to “Brown Eyed Girl”. Ditto Mr. Buffett and “Margaritaville”, which is a good song–but that’s not all he did. Not by a long shot.
The lyrics on that shirt are from “A Pirate Looks At Forty”, which is actually now my favorite Buffett song. Of course, I still haven’t heard enough of Buffett’s work to say that “A Pirate Looks At Forty” will remain my favorite, if I listen to more of him, but for now…this is it.
Of course, Jimmy Buffett died just the other day. The outpouring of grief in my community, online and off, was as large as it was touching; Buffett is a man whose music has moved a lot of hearts and offered balm to a lot of souls, whether weary or not. Apparently Buffett had been ill for some time, but he also passed in the company of his family and his dogs. I assume the ocean was near. He lived in Sag Harbor, New York. I would have thought that he lived somewhere nearer warmer waters…but the ocean is the ocean, isn’t it? You can hear Mother Ocean’s call in any port.
Some people pointed out Buffett’s earlier work, written before he landed on the “Beachcomber” lifestyle as his brand, as speaking to them most directly. I gave one such song a listen, for the first time, and I was quite surprised by what I heard in “Come Monday”. This is almost a pure country song, from a wonderful little subgenre that seems to have reached its height in country music of the 1970s: a man wanting nothing more than to go home and be with his lover, and more often than not, knowing that he can’t. “Come Monday” lives in the same heartspace as Eddie Rabbit’s “Every Which Way But Loose”, Charlie Rich’s “I’ll Wake You Up When I Get Home”, and Ray Price’s “For the Good Times”.
For all of Jimmy Buffett’s air of “Grab a rum drink, pull up a chair, and let’s sing a while on the sand”, he really does seem to have been able to capture the most wistful sides of life along the way. The sea often feels like home, but you can’t always go back, can you?
Anyway, thanks for the music, Jimmy Buffett. I think the cannons have a little thunder left, personally….
First, a quote from Evenings with the Orchestra by Hector Berlioz:
In a certain opera house of northern Europe, it is the custom among the members of the orchestra, several of whom are cultivated men, to spend their time reading books–or even discussing matters literary and musical–whenever they perform second-rate operas. This is to say that they read and talk a good deal. Next to the score on every music-stand, some book or other is generally to be found, and a performer apparently most absorbed in scanning his part, or most earnestly counting his rests while watching for his cue, may actually be giving all his attention to Balzac’s marvelous scenes, to Dickens’s enchanting pictures of social life, or even to the study of one of the sciences. I know one who, during the first fifteen performances of a well-known opera, read, re-read, pondered, and mastered the three volumes of Humboldt’s Cosmos. Another, during the long run of a silly score now forgotten, managed to learn English; while a third, thanks to his exceptional memory, retailed to his neighbors the substance of some ten volumes of tales, romances, anecdotes, and risque stories.
One man only in this orchestra does not allow himself any such diversion. Wholly intent upon his task, all energy, indefatigable, his eye glued to his notes and his arm in perpetual motion, he would feel dishonored if he were to miss an eighth note or incur censure for his tone quality. By the end of each act he is flushed, perspiring, exhausted; he can hardly breathe, yet he does not take advantage of the respite offered by the cessation of musical hostilities to go for a glass of beer at the nearest bar. The fear of missing the first measures of the next act keeps him rooted at his post. Touched by so much zeal, the manager of the opera house once sent him six bottles of wine, “by way of encouragement”. But the artist, “conscious of his responsibilities”, was so far from grateful for the gift that he returned it with the proud words: “I have no need of encouragement.” The reader will have guessed that I am speaking of the man who plays the bass drum.
That’s been a favorite passage of music writing of mine for years. Berlioz’s mind was supremely literary, and had he not been a great composer he might well still be remembered for his writings on music instead of his writings of music.
But what’s the relevance? I turn now to one of my favorite Substack publications, the Daily Classical Music Post by musicologist Laura Lawrie. On this publication, Lawrie does exactly what the title says: she shares a piece of classical music every day. Her range is very wide, which makes her Substack a fantastic resource for people who are curious about classical music in all its varieties. Last week she shared this piece: the Concerto for Bass Drum and Orchestra by Gabriel Prokofiev. Lawrie writes:
Some instruments spend just about all of their time at the back of the orchestra or band, supplying vitally important support but never shining on their own. Today’s selection features one of those instruments, the bass drum.
The Russian-British composer Gabriel Prokofiev (born 1975) wrote his Concerto for Bass Drum and Orchestra in 2012. He said, “It produces the lowest frequencies of the Orchestra, and is used to create some of the most thunderous climaxes, but it’s never been considered as a ‘solo’ instrument or been given a Concerto. As it’s un-pitched, and on the surface seems quite a limited instrument, that’s not surprising; but back in 2011 I perversely thought it would be interesting to attempt to compose a Concerto for Bass Drum.”
Gabriel Prokofiev is the grandson of the great Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, so the musical tradition is continuing there. The work itself is a challenging listen, but it makes some deeply creative use of the sounds that the bass drum can make, and they go far, far beyond simply whacking it with a mallet. Creative use of percussion is always a joy to behold (witness, for example, Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony), and this particular performance embraces the unique nature of the piece. One imagines M. Berlioz’s much-admired bass drummer taking to this work with relish!
Here is the Concerto for Bass Drum and Orchestra by Gabriel Prokofiev.
I’m guessing this would fall under the category of “cultural appropriation” in some way, right? This is movie music by English composer John Barry, which he wrote for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. The film takes place in Japan, so Barry tried to incorporate an “Oriental sound” into his score, which was the practice in 1967 but which now seems oddly disrespectful.
And yet, it’s John Barry, so the result is unquestionably beautiful. This cue underscores a false “wedding” in which Bond, disguised as a Japanese fisherman, takes a local “wife”, who is really an undercover agent working with him. The cue is lovely and delicate in a way not usually associated with Bond.
The things you learn on the radio! This morning I heard this piece, and after it was done I learned why they played it: on this date in 1962, the lower deck of the George Washington Bridge, which connects Manhattan and New Jersey, opened. American composer William Schuman later wrote this piece for concert band, inspired by the span of this great bridge. Schuman, one of the most important American composers of the 20th century, wrote of this piece:
There are a few days in the year when I do not see George Washington Bridge. I pass it on my way to work as I drive along the Henry Hudson Parkway on the New York shore. Ever since my student days when I watched the progress of its construction, this bridge has had for me an almost human personality, and this personality is astonishingly varied, assuming different moods depending on the time of day or night, the weather, the traffic and, of course, my own mood as I pass by.
I have walked across it late at night when it was shrouded in fog, and during the brilliant sunshine hours of midday. I have driven over it countless times and passed under it on boats. Coming to New York City by air, sometimes I have been lucky enough to fly right over it. It is difficult to imagine a more gracious welcome or dramatic entry to the great metropolis.
(credit)
Here is George Washington Bridge by William Schuman.
(The formatting for this post went a bit wonky when I cut-and-pasted the lyrics from another site. I hope this renders the way it’s supposed to.)
There are a few songs that I’ve known since the earliest time I was aware that there were things called “songs” in the first place. One of them has lyrics that go like this:
CHORUS: I have been a roverI have walked aloneHiked a hundred highwaysNever found a homeStill in all I’m happyThe reason is, you seeOnce in a while along the wayLove’s been good to me.
There was a girl in DenverBefore the summer stormOh, her eyes were tenderOh, her arms were warmAnd she could smile away the thunderKiss away the rainEven though she’s gone awayYou won’t hear me complainCHORUS
There was a girl in PortlandBefore the winter chillWe used to go a-courtin’Along October hillAnd she could laugh away the dark cloudsCry away the snowIt seems like only yesterdayAs down the road I go
CHORUS
This song is called “Love’s Been Good To Me”, and it was written by poet and songwriter Rod McKuen, whose work was apparently very popular in the 20th century. I honestly don’t know much about his work at all other than this particular song, to be honest.
This song has not attained “classic” status, but it hasn’t vanished into obscurity, either. It’s been covered a bit, though not so much as some other stalwarts of the “Great American Songbook”. Maybe that’s because melodically it’s not a “big tune” kind of song that rewards vocal pyrotechnics; this isn’t the kind of ballad that the Whitney Houstons of the world would belt from the stage of an arena in front of 15,000 lighter-waving (or cell-phone waving, these days) fans. It’s a more wistful kind of song; the attraction here lies in the words themselves. A convincing performance of this song requires vocal acting, really: the singer has to actually sound like a person looking back at relationships from the vantage point of years (or even decades), with a mix of sadness that the love has ended but also the happiness that the love happened at all.
Here is the Kingston Trio:
That’s lovely, although it’s not the version I grew up hearing. This next version, by Tom Jones, is interesting. Of all the versions I’ve heard, Jones comes closest to making “Love’s Been Good To Me” into a vocal showpiece, which is probably to be expected; after all, it’s Tom Jones. He chooses a slower tempo, which is interesting in itself, and the guitar in the background is certainly busy. The song becomes more of a vocal showpiece by virtue of Jones taking it slow and pitching the song to favor his almost-operatic sound in his upper register. This is a beautiful rendition, but still not the one I knew as a kid.
Next is, so far, the only cover I’ve found thus far by a female singer: Nina Simone, who gender-flips the song for her own tastes. Her voice here does have the sound of someone with the experience of roaming the country, occasionally finding love along the way. She has a raspy quality, especially in the higher notes, that suits this song pretty well.
Then there’s this, maybe the most convincing version as far as the sound goes: you can’t hear this version and not think, “Yup, that’s the voice of someone with decades on the road behind them.” This is Johnny Cash, who covered “Love’s Been Good To Me” on one of his very last albums. (In fact, it was released posthumously.) At this point, Cash’s baritone remained, but it was thinner, reedier; you can hear the air in his voice, and you can hear him working to get into the higher register. In all the versions of this song I’ve heard, Cash’s might be the closest marriage of the meaning of the words with the voice singing it.
There are others that I won’t post here, more for space reasons than anything else…Orson Bean covered it (though it seems to have disappeared from YouTube for now), and of course Rod McKuen himself recorded it, quite effectively. If you search the song on YouTube you’ll find a lot of covers, some by well-known singers and more by singers who are not much known these days anymore. But the version I grew up learning and knowing?
Well, that’s by perhaps the single biggest singer of the entire twentieth century. I always figured that he was a younger man when he recorded it, but I’ve just looked it up, and the album A Man Alone, which is all songs by McKuen, came along when the singer in question was already in his 50s.
Here’s Mr. Sinatra.
Our local classical station, WNED, tends to be a bit heavy on the Dvorak. They play a ton of him. Like, a whole lot. Sometimes I think they need to tone down the Dvorak a little.
Other times I choose to listen to some Dvorak and I think, “Yeah, it’s fine, he is a crowd-pleaser, after all, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” This probably comes from his use of rustic folk songs and dance rhythms in his music, in which you can hear his Czech heart beating through every bar. Like in this concert overture!
Here is “My Home” by Antonin Dvorak.
I’ve avoided mention of that ghastly song by country singer Jason Aldean for many reasons, but I bring it up now because while I am not a big country music fan, by any means, sometimes I do love a country song a whole lot, and I hate to see a genre that is strong with possibility so consistently associated with a piece of hate-filled dreck by a right-wing clown who is nothing more than a pretender, as far as his “small-town” credentials go. (The man grew up in Macon, GA–population 150,000 or so–and Homestead, FL–population 80,000, but it’s part of the Miami metro area.)
Meanwhile, other country artists are honoring the genre’s folk and blue-collar roots with songs of real emotional import and weight, and I hate seeing all of the oxygen in the discourse sucked up by yet another crappy anthem for the MAGA crowd.
So, today I have a song by Tyler Childers. I saw this article mentioned on social media the other week and saved the song and its accompanying video, which tells a rather heartbreaking story of gay love in a 1950s Appalachian mining town:
Like any country music singer worth his salt, Tyler Childers knows a little something about heartbreak. Unlike most of the current crop of shiny Nashville honky-tonk pretenders, though, he also knows a whole lot about growing up in coal country.
Childers was born and raised in Lawrence County, Kentucky, a stone’s throw away from the storied home places of country legends Loretta Lynn and Chris Stapleton (with whom he performed a stirring duet at the Kentucky Rising festival last year). His father was a coal miner; his grandpa, a tenant farmer, scraped a living out of the clay-rich soil. His music — a blend of country, folk and bluegrass (though don’t call it Americana), is steeped in that rural Appalachian upbringing and the lessons he learned at home in the hollows. Childers has come by his fan base honest, and has used his rising fame for good by speaking out about issues like racial injustice and religious intolerance.
As for the song itself? It’s quite a beautiful song, really…gentle and sad in the best country-folk tradition. It reminds me of the Shannon Dooks song I platformed twice this summer already, in its depiction of a love that is devoted to overcoming the challenges. There’s an emotional honesty in this song that the Jason Aldeans of this world can’t come close to capturing.