Here is a contender for First Song I Remember Ever Hearing In My Life. I love this song, and Mr. Diamond, to this day.
Something for Thursday
Dame Vera Lynn has died at the age of 103.
Lynn was a singer, songwriter, and entertainer whose stardom was brightest during World War II, when she was a big part of maintaining morale within the British forces. After the war she had a long recording career and became an icon of popular culture, even to the point of being referenced, in all places, in a song on the Pink Floyd album The Wall.
I spent some time today at work listening to Vera Lynn, and hearing her songs from the distance of almost eighty years, it’s not hard to hear why she was such a star. Her voice in those songs is radiant, carrying the melodies with amazing ease and sonority. She had a nearly perfect voice for the kind of songs that were…well, at the risk of betraying a bit too much bias, I tend to be increasingly of the view that the 1930s and 1940s were the Golden Age of the popular love song.
Here are a few selections I found, including Lynn’s best known song, “We’ll Meet Again”. It’s an incredibly effective song, but the one here that really hits me between the eyes is one of my absolute favorite songs of all time, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
Here is Dame Vera Lynn.
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Something for Thursday
Something for Thursday
I’ve featured this song before, in a version from the 1980s that I wasn’t aware was a cover at the time. It’s one of my favorite versions of any song, ever. It’s People Get Ready, performed by Rod Stewart and guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck.
But as I note above, it was actually quite a few years before I learned that the Beck-Stewart People Get Ready was a cover. The original was by the brilliant black musician Curtis Mayfield. Here he is, performing his own song.
Covers are great, but we shouldn’t erase original artists. Doubly so, if they are black.
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Something for Thursday
Alas! We have just learned yesterday of two major event cancellations this summer, two beloved events that we attend each year, pretty much without fail. One is the Erie County Fair; the other is the Sterling Renaissance Festival. We completely understand why each one had to be struck from the 2020 calendar, as neither is likely to be safe during this pandemic. But still…what a bummer!
Especially the Renaissance Festival, which is just such a charming bit of mental escapism, a kind of stepping back in time. No joust, with Milady In Blue and the Impressive Scotsman! No Queen Elizabeth, presiding over the whole thing! No smoked turkey legs! No…oh well.
But at least I can summon up the mood a bit, through music–actual Renaissance and Elizabethan era music, or contemporary music in that vein, like this from one of my favorite bands, Blackmore’s Night.
Here is “Under a Violet Moon”.
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Something for Thursday
Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back! I have a longer piece in the works for The Geekiverse, but for now, here is John Williams leading a pretty good music group in one of the most famous themes he has ever composed: the “Imperial March” from that very film.
And the music group? None other than the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra!
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Something for Thursday
I haven’t seen the movie since the year it came out–1998, I believe–but Shakespeare In Love has always boasted one of my favorite filmscores, composed by Stephen Warbeck. Looking over Warbeck’s filmography, it turns out that Shakespeare In Love is the only score of his that I’ve ever heard. He takes an interesting approach to the film, mostly eschewing the kind of “Elizabethan” sound one might have expected. He also keeps the score mostly on the introspective side, but he also depicts in music a rather optimistic London, which may not exactly be accurate. Warbeck’s musical focus is on the developing, and forbidden, relationship between Shakespeare and Viola. This short suite captures a bit of the emotional heft of the music, even though the complete score is well worth a listen. (It’s actually joined my rotation of filmscores I play while I write Seaflame! Book Two.)
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Something for Thursday (Friday edition)
Sorry to be a day late, but I had my regular shift at work yesterday, combined with my weekly grocery shopping, combined with having to go back in to work to assist with an overtime job (installing a new refrigerated case). I didn’t get home for good until 8:30pm, by which time I figured, “Meh, wait ’til tomorrow.”
So here, without a lot of extra comment, is Jimmy Durante. Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!
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I’ve always loved Loreena McKennitt’s music, although I did lose track of her for a while. It turns out that she had a new album in 2018, called Lost Souls. Here is the first track from that album, “Spanish Guitars and Night Plazas”. I’ve heard the album all the way through just a couple of times, but I plan to listen to it a lot more, moving forward. Apparently it is comprised of songs recorded or written earlier in McKennitt’s career, songs that ended up not included on albums for which they were originally intended; this makes it all vintage McKennitt, and quite wonderful for that.
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Something for Thursday
If you’ve ever been around piano students or piano teachers, you’ve heard this work of Beethoven’s. The Sonata No. 8 in C minor, also known as the Pathetique, is often a young pianist’s first entrance into the world of the Beethoven piano sonatas, and for good reason: it’s highly technical but not so demanding as Beethoven’s later sonatas, which require very high levels of skill if not outright virtuosity to perform well. The Pathetique also offers a lot of drama, brooding passages, stormy melodies, and drama a-plenty for a young student who is just beginning to engage the last of the Classical composers and, possibly, the first of the Romantics. The work has become almost a cliche, in much the same way that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has, and it’s worthwhile to come to it again once in a while with refreshed ears. Here is the Pathetique Sonata, performed by Daniel Barenboim, one of the greats.