The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
Stupid busy days at work! I mean, they do make the days go by faster. But they also make me almost forget to post!
Today would have been the 73rd birthday of Karen Carpenter. I first heard this song not long ago, and at the time I thought it an odd bit of 70s mystical ballad stuff, but it’s grown on me, I must say.
Here are The Carpenters with “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”.
Oof. Today was a day. An ice storm led to a 13-hour blackout at home, and work was an adventure, too. I don’t have a whole lot of extra mental bandwidth for musical commentary…so here’s a song that doesn’t need commentary. It’s Gladys Knight and the Pips with “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
In the 1940s and 50s, there were quite a few Black singing quartets recording music. Many early Black solo artists got their start in groups like this (Sam Cooke being a prime example), but I’ve just learned something very interesting about these groups and their role in Black music history. One of these groups was called The Jubalaires, and apparently their style relied less on gorgeous harmonies and vocal work and more on rhythm and a singing style that was at times a blend of singing and speaking.
In other words, The Jubalaires were a very real precursor to what we know today as rap. And this song, “Noah”, has been called the very first recorded rap song. I don’t have the historical chops to assess that claim, but how fascinating! It’s a really neat listen, I must admit, as someone who knows very, very little about rap.
Burt Bacharach has died. He was one of those ultra-prolific songwriters (along with frequent partner Hal David) who, for every song you knew he wrote, there’s probably two songs you know well that you did not know he had a hand in.
For me, this was one. I perused a list of Bacharach songs and discovered that this was one of them. I never knew he wrote it.
Here’s “I Say A Little Prayer”.
(UPDATE: I feel like I should write something more about Bacharach and his legacy, but I’m really not the best person to do that. If anyone sees any particularly good tribute pieces on him, let me know and I’ll link them.)
I don’t remember who tweeted about this song the other day, but they basically said something along the lines of, “Sometimes you need a Swedish metal song about the soldiers who protected the Pope during the sack of Rome in 1527.” I, of course, had never once needed such a thing–until that moment, when suddenly I needed this song very badly.
So, here it is. The band is called Sabaton, and the song is “The Last Stand”. The chorus goes like this:
For the grace, for the might of our lord
For the home of the holy
For the faith, for the way of the sword
Gave their lives so boldlyFor the grace, for the might of our lord
In the name of his glory
For the faith, for the way of the sword
Come and tell their story again
That’s…something! It’s quite a song. Apparently this band does a lot of songs inspired by historical events. I’m going to have to give them more of a listen at some point.
It’s late in the day, almost 6pm, and I still haven’t posted. I wasn’t even sure what to post…and then I see that David Crosby has died.
Here are Messrs. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
Expect a lot of Rachmaninoff on this site this year, as it’s the great composer’s 150th birth year. Today doesn’t quite see Rachmaninoff directly…but a piece by a teacher of his.
Sergei Taneyev succeeded Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory, teaching harmony and counterpoint. Among his students was a young Sergei Rachmaninoff. Even though Taneyev is better known for being a teacher of some of Russia’s great musicians, his music is still interesting in its own right. Taneyev’s approach was apparently more academic and classically-oriented than, say, a Tchaikovsky or a Rimsky-Korsakov would have liked; but his ideas lived on in the works of many of his students.
This work is a cantata that sets a Russian poem by Alexei Tolstoy (cousin to the more famous Leo Tolstoy). Sometimes called The Russian Requiem, Taneyev’s work marries a muted lyricism with a carefully-considered mode of vocal writing, including a fascinating fugue in the last section. The work was written in 1884, when Rachmaninoff himself was just eleven years old. Nevertheless, I have to assume that Rachmaninoff heard this work at some point in his impressionable youth, and that its influence would be reflected in later works of his like Vespers.
Sad news from the music world yesterday: guitarist Jeff Beck has died. He had a long and unconventional career, which led to some amazing music-making. This song was my introduction to his guitar work, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs of the 80s, and then of all time. Yes, it’s a cover; the original is by the great Curtis Mayfield, whose own versions are well worth seeking out…but this rendition stood in stark contrast to the Van Halen-esque guitar fireworks that were the main role of the guitar at that time (at least, in terms of the guitar-centric music that I was listening to at at the time). Now, I loved hair metal and I yield to no one in my conviction that Eddie Van Halen is one of the all-time greats, but Jeff Beck was something else. He showed me that the guitar could sing, and his playing here doesn’t merely back up Rod Stewart’s vocals; Beck’s playing here is a full partner with Mr. Stewart.
I didn’t realize until quite a few years after I heard this song that Jeff Beck’s career had been as long as it had been. He was apparently difficult to work with at times, but also he was one of those musicians who follows his own instincts and thoughts, with the result being decades of great music-making.
Thank you for the music, Jeff Beck. I hope your guitar is sounding on that very train.
Here is “People Get Ready”.