Music favs

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Moonstruck said:
Olivier, this is so well done. I am a little jealous of your boat and cruising area. Well, more than a little jealous. Beautiful.:thumb:
Click to expand...

Don,
Many thanks for your kind comments very much appreciated.
Several months ago I have fully read your interesting blog which I enjoyed, I even wrote comments, Moonstruck is truly beautiful - I do like her look of capable boat, special mention to the design of the hull -, one of my favorite pic was at her seasonal home at Shelter Cove Harbour Hilton Head Island, the "Life aboard" chapter shows a very nice interior and super clean engine room.

I'm jealous also of your cruising area, Chesapeake Bay SC, South Florida & the keys, Naples, up to Saint Petersburg, I have enjoyed to sailing twice there, beautiful memories.

Thank you as well for your music thread that allows me to discover many great singers and players.

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas.
 
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I tried uploading some Peggy Lee, but the content was protected, so I deleted it. Now there is a singer. But, no upload that plays.Anyone else want to try?
I found my Incognito CD with "Nights Over Egypt", see post 121. The live version I posted, recorded at a jazz festival in Indonesia I think, has much more feeling to it, probably played well into their set by the sweat of the band, crowd sure knew what was coming in the first few bars of the intro riff.
 
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Here is one of my favs from Kassav

 
Well, SteveW didn't come through, so here is Rocking Dopsie and his Zydeco Twisters. Known as the crown prince of Zydeco, he was one of the early ones to blend a sax with the accordion. Dopsie, Jr. in on the wash board. This is Louisiana dance hall music.

 
Here's one from the Tedeschi/Trucks band. It's a little jazzy and a little bluesy. She's a really good jazz singer. Derek Trucks sometimes plays with the Allman Brothers Band.

 
A little more Louisiana music. This time Cajun rather than Zydeco. Pure Zydeco is just an accordion and a washboard. Cajun usually has a fiddle. The Cajun French love their music and dancing.

 
https://youtu.be/5AVOpNR2PIs

Frank Sinatra and "My Way", the French song which crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

It's a song as familiar as any national anthem, the opening lines stamped into our cultural consciousness: “And now, the end is near; and so I face the final curtain...”

We owe "My Way" to a Frenchman born in Egypt whose parents were forced to flee when Nasser seized the Suez Canal, plus a Syrian-Lebanese family whose patriarch took it upon himself to hang an unpunished child rapist and then emigrated to Canada where the immigration official mistook the anecdote for their surname and put them down as "Anka" ("noose").

Between the Egyptian Frenchman and the Lebanese Canadian came a young South Londoner called David Bowie.

It didn't work out for Bowie, but it did for Frank Sinatra. Here is the story.

Forty seven years ago Frank Sinatra released My Way. Although it peaked at only number five it was to remain in the UK charts for the best part of two and a half years and was to become the song which defined Sinatra himself.

With its soaring melody and defiant lyrics it not only summed up the career of the greatest singer of all time but struck a chord with the lives of millions of ordinary people the world over. It has since been covered by more than 100 different artists and has given chart success to acts as diverse as Dorothy Squires, Elvis Presley and the Sex Pistols.

But it nearly wasn’t recorded at all and were it not for a chance conversation over dinner Sinatra would never have released it.

My Way started life as a rather gloomy number called "Comme d’Habitude" (As Usual) by French singer Claude Francois. In 1967 his tune about the end of a love affair reached number one in France but took a rather different lyrical tone from its later reincarnation.

From the opening line, “I get up, I shake you – you don’t wake up as usual”, to the closing cry, “We will make love as usual, we will fake it as usual”, the song has little in common with My Way other than the melody.
But that was enough for Canadian singer Paul Anka. The 27-year-old crooner was a star himself thanks to hits such as Diana and It’s Time To Cry and he later said that after hearing Comme d’Habitude while on holiday in the Riviera: “It was a s*** song but I felt there was something different in it.”

He approached Claude Francois and co-writer Jacques Reveaux and acquired the rights. Back in New York, however, Anka couldn’t find the inspiration he needed to make something of the tune until one day he received a phone call from Frank Sinatra. The pair went out to dinner and Frank dropped a bombshell.
“He says, ‘I’m quitting the business. I’m sick of it, I’m getting the hell out’,” remembers Anka. “He says to me, ‘You have to write me something. You’ve promised for years to write me something.’ And I remembered this melody and was very motivated with him telling me he was retiring so I went home and sat at my typewriter and started to write the song as if Sinatra were writing it.”

Anka put himself into Sinatra’s shoes – if he was to write Sinatra’s defining song he wanted to make sure he captured the spirit of the man even down to the way he talked.
“I used words I would never use: ‘I ate it up and spit it out’ – but that’s the way he talked. The Rat Pack guys, they liked to talk like mob guys.
“So I started typing: ‘And now the end is near...’ and it wrote itself from there. At five o’clock in the morning I called Frank and said ‘I have something special for your last album’.”

Anka flew to Las Vegas and sang his new version to Sinatra. No longer an ode to failing love, in one night he had transformed it into a swaggering, powerful cry of defiance.

Sinatra’s reaction was typically cool. “He just gave me that wink he had,” remembers Anka. “Then two months later I get a call from him.
He says: ‘Kid, listen to this,’ puts the phone to a speaker and that was the first time I heard Frank sing my song.”
The impact was immediate but not all favourable. While the critics and public went wild for My Way, Anka’s record company were furious that he had passed on his masterpiece. “I said hey, I can write it but I’m not the guy to sing it. It was for Frank, no one else.”
Anka was right. My Way’s success was not only down to the lyrics and the melody it was down to the man who first sang it.

My Way was not simply the perfect swansong it was the perfect swansong for Frank Sinatra. By 1969 he had been in the business for more than 30 years and had already been declared a has-been twice – once in the Fifties by the rock ’n’ rollers and again in the late Sixties by The Beatles and hippies.

When My Way came out the former boxer, bobby-soxer, crooner, film star, Rat Pack leader and rumoured mobster had seen it all, done it all and didn’t care who knew it.
Only Sinatra could have pulled off the swagger necessary to give the song its full power. Only he had the moral authority to deliver the line: “The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.”
However, Sinatra’s unique moral authority hasn’t exactly been recognised by the rest of the singing world. Paul Anka might have known he was the only guy to sing it but over the past 40 years that hasn’t stopped just about everyone else having a go.

Nor do the hundreds of versions already recorded deter modern musicians from having a shot. Celine Dion, G4, Il Divo, Michael Bublé and even Robbie Williams have all tried their hand at My Way and it has become a staple of karaokes, funerals and retirement parties everywhere.

When German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder stepped down in 2005, more than seven million TV viewers watched tears well up in his eyes as a military band saw him off with a version of My Way.

Although Sinatra did briefly retire in 1971 he was persuaded to make numerous comebacks and with each one My Way.

When he died in 1998 he chose not to follow the millions who had used My Way as their epitaph. Inscribed on his tomb instead is the title of an earlier hit: "The Best Is Yet To Come".
 
What a great musical history lesson, Olivier. It reminds me of the inscriptions on the marble slabs over the graves of Johnny Mercer and his wife in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery. Johnny's inscription is "And the Angels Sang". His wife's is "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby". Of course, both are from lyrics he penned.

Paul Anka is still doing concert tours, and usually does a visit to the Sunrise Theatre in Ft. Pierce, FL where Moonstruck is berthed.

A tidbit about Bonaventure Cemetery is that the eastern edge of the property is the ICW.
 
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Don, if you hear that anybody good is playing in Ft. Pierce, let me know. I've got enough friends up there that I might just drive up.

I saw Engelbert Humperdinck , or how ever you spell it, at the Sunrise a couple of years ago. The women still throw underwear on the stage only now it's Depends.

I see Booker T. is still doing concerts.
 
Surprised I haven't posted any Clapton yet.

https://youtu.be/0b-OHZI1Q5w

The song he dug up and made his own is often mistaken for depression era. It's actually a pre-depression roaring 20's blues piece that failed to become popular until the Great Depression hit. The video was from a Live Aid benefit concert. I feel it demonstrates his voices almost Tony Bennett quality of getting better with age.
 
Parks, here's the schedule for the Sunrise Theatre. Paul Anka will be back this year along with Art Garfunkel and America. Many other acts scheduled. Are you aware of the little theatre to the left of the lobby. It is an intimate venue called the Black Box. In season, every Tuesday night the Fort Pierce Jazz Society does a live jazz show. Many of the performers are surprisingly good. I will usually walk up when at the boat.

Sunrise Theatre Fort Pierce Tickets - Coming Soon
 
I don't know if it's entirely relevant here but I'm taking the risk.
One of the world's most finest anthem, San Rafael Mission Church, Marin County, California, on Sunday before 4th of July 2016. (Video from my iPhone).

https://youtu.be/eLXu3us4ii0
 
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I found some Bill Evans online, audio not great but still worth posting. He was, imo, one of the best ever jazz pianists, his level of concentration on "My Foolish Heart" belies his complex yet relaxed, near classical sounding music he produced so many times.
 
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"Waltz for Debby" is another special Bill Evans number, a little more uptempo. Note the interplay with the base player, and how during the intro the drummer folds his arms.
 
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Great, Bruce. Craig has been posting some good stuff too. There is at least Tone similarity between this artist and Bill Evans. Look how their hands can span the key boards. A little different style than Bill Evans. Here is Ramsey Lewis and "In Crowd". I happened to see Ramsey Lewis about the time this was recorded. The base player could sure wear it out.

 
Olivier, thank you for posting that. It seems appropriate to post this that was sent to me last night by my 93 year old aunt. She is in a wheel chair, but her mind is still sharp. This will tie into your post.


Okay, I’m a sentimental, corny ole guy who loves his nation and old
enough to remember that when any disrespect reared its ugly head,
social ostracization shoved them back into their hole. What was needed
then, is needed now, and after reading the prose, watch the video and
feel the emotion and pride engendered then and perhaps experienced
now. Enjoy a trip to the past that may revive the present.



Yes this has been around before and it needs to keep
going around.

Frank
Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her
time, and said that
when he and a million other guys first
heard her sing "God Bless America
" on the radio, they
all pretended to have dust in their eyes as
they wiped away a tear
or two.

Here are the
facts... The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very
first public singing of "GOD
BLESS AMERICA ". But before you watch it, you should also know the
story behind the first public showing of the song.


The time was
1938. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking
over Europe and Americans were afraid we'd have to go to war. It was a time of
hardship and worry for most Americans.

This was the
era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat
around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers,
and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith.

Kate was also
large; plus size, as we now say, and the popular phrase still used today is in
deference to her, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings". Kate
Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming
over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time.

Kate was also
patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the
next day would bring. She had hope for America , and faith in her fellow
Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the
famous American song-writer, Irving Berlin
(who also wrote "White Christmas") and asked him to write a song
that would make Americans feel good again about their country. When she
described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for
her.

He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before... way back in 1917. He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.

This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts
singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, "You're In the Army Now." At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it's Ronald Reagan.

To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the
spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry... and for many generations of Americans to follow.

Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you'll enjoy it and treasure it even more.

Many people don't know there's a lead in to the song since it usually starts with "God Bless America ".

So here's the
entire song as originally
sung... ENJOY!


Kate Smith introduces God Bless America
 
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It may be a good time for a little scat. And yes, I do believe that is a Tyrolean coat Ramsey is wearing on the cover.

 
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As a long time, but now retired performing musician, I am not fond of most of what is being presented as "music" these days. The sound system on the boat is rarely turned on.


When I'm cruising, my music is the sound of the waves slapping against the hull and the wildlife on shore. It's my getaway from the constant sounds of my life on land.


And why do gas stations think it's necessary to play "music" to folks who just want to fill their cars with gasoline?
 
Moonstruck said:
Olivier, thank you for posting that. It seems appropriate to post this that was sent to me last night by my 93 year old aunt. She is in a wheel chair, but her mind is still sharp. This will tie into your post.

Kate Smith introduces God Bless America
Click to expand...

Don
Many thanks for this.

PM sent.
Please give my personal thanks also my best wishes to your Aunt,
 
omc said:
Don
Many thanks for this.

PM sent.
Please give my personal thanks also my best wishes to your Aunt,
Click to expand...

Olivier, consider it done. Thanks. She will like that.
 

Performed by Yves Montand.

Everything for a good start to the new year.

Yves Montand was a popular french nightclub singer and movie actor, most famous for his dramatic role in the 1953 thriller The Wages of Fear. Born in Italy, his family fled to France when Benito Mussolini came to power. Montand began singing professionally as a teenager, and worked his way up to performing in the best Paris music halls. With the help of Edith Piaf, Montand landed his first film role in Etoile sansLumiére (1946). Mostly a singing film star at first, his acting career took off after The Wages of Fear, and he starred in a number of French and European films. His long marriage to actress Simone Signoret weathered his exploits as a ladies' man, including his famous dalliance with Marilyn Monroe, his co-star in Hollywood's Let's Make Love (1960). In the 1980s Montand had a second wind, with character roles in several films, including Jean de Florette (1986). His other films include The Crucible (1957), Is Paris Burning?, Z (1969) and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970, with Barbra Streisand).

Lyrics in English :

It’s so good,
These little feelings,
It’s worth better than a million—
It’s so, so good!

You can guess what happiness is ours,
And if I love her, you understand why.
She intoxicates me, and I don’t want any others,
For she is all women at once.
She makes me go, “Oh!”
She makes me go, “Ah!”

It’s so good
To be able to embrace,
And then to start again
At the least excuse.

It’s so good
To play the piano
All the length of her back
While we’re dancing.

It’s unheard-of, what she has for seducing,
Not to mention what I can’t say!

It’s so good,
When I hold her in my arms,
To tell myself that all this,
It’s mine for good.

It’s so good,
And if we are in love,
Don’t look for the reason—
It’s because it’s so good!
 
Thanks, Pilou. Louis Armstrong was one of my Dad's favorite entertainers. Here is another that contrasts Louis's gravelly voice with Ella Fitzgerald's wonderfully clear voice. I think Ella was one of the best singers of our time. Hope you enjoy.

 
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