The notion of “dancing to Sinatra” immediately calls to mind images of World War II-era GIs and their sweethearts dancing cheek-to-cheek to the crooner’s ballads or couples jitterbugging to Five minutes more.
A provocative presence among social dance musicians of the swing era, Sinatra’s songs have also inspired the dancing of professional choreographers in ballet and modern dance. Perhaps the most important choreography created for the concert stage to Sinatra’s music is Twyla Tharp’s Sinatra suite, which was choreographed in 1983 for American Ballet Theatre’s Mihail Baryšnikov and Elaine Kudo.
This according to “Dancing to Sinatra: The partnership of music and movement in Twyla Tharp’s Sinatra suite” by Lisa Jo Sagolla, an essay included in Frank Sinatra: The man, the music, the legend (Rochester: University of Rochester, 2007, pp. 117–23).
Today is Sinatra’s 100th birthday! Above, recording dance music for the kids; below, an excerpt from Tharp’s work.
Humor provides a means of navigating the race and gender politics of hip hop culture in several ways.
The Beastie Boys, a trio of white Jewish rappers, relied heavily on humor to mark their outsider status while mitigating claims of racial inauthenticity.
The triumphant career of Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott shows how her humor—especially when aimed at the rapper herself—has functioned as an artistic expression of old-school legitimacy and as a means of empowerment for a businesswoman in the male-dominated music industry.
While the proliferation of hip hop parody relies on racial and gender stereotypes for much of its humor, it also offers outsiders the possibility to negotiate otherwise prohibitive social differences from within hip hop culture.
This according to “Pranksta rap: Humor as difference in hip hop” by Charles Hiroshi Garrett, an essay included in Rethinking difference in music scholarship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 315–337).
Below, Missy Elliott performs Work it, her classic send-up of sexual stereotypes.
The 1988 California court decision favoring Bette Midler over Ford Motor Company’s advertising agency left legal commentators wondering less about performance rights than what might be called persona rights.
After a number of performers, including Nancy Sinatra in Sinatra v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. (1970), had been unsuccessful in their attempts to make a proprietal claim on an identifiable vocal style, Midler v. Ford Motor Co. reversed the trend.
The Ninth Circuit Court, overruling the trial court, concluded that Midler’s brassy belting of the 1972 hit Do you want to dance? was hers alone. In hiring a singer to imitate the Midler style in a Mercury Sable television commercial, the judge said that Ford’s agency was “pirating an identity”.
This according to “Bette Midler and the piracy of identity” by Jane M. Gaines, an essay included in Music and copyright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, pp. 86–98).
Today is Midler’s 70th birthday! Below, singing Do you want to dance? in 1993.
On 28 November 1925 a white-bearded man sat down before one of the Nashville radio station WSM’s modern carbon microphones to play some old-time fiddle tunes. Uncle Jimmy Thompson played on the air for an hour that night, and throughout the region listeners took notice.
In Nashville the response at the offices of National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which owned radio station WSM, was dramatic. It was not long before the station manager was besieged by pickers and fiddlers of every variety, all wanting their shot at the Saturday night airwaves.
By 1940 the Grand Ole Opry had found its national audience and was poised to become the legendary institution that it remains to this day.
This according to A good-natured riot: The birth of the Grand Ole Opry by Charles K. Wolfe (Nashville: Country Music Foundation, 1999). Above, Ernest Tubb at the Opry. Below, a show from the early 1960s.
Unlike his older brother Jimmy, who got his start in films with uncredited background music, Tommy Dorsey shrewdly bided his time until his band was famous enough to command a significant fee.
Unfortunately, his first film, Las Vegas nights, was a disaster. “A picture like that can come back and haunt you” admitted the film’s star, Bert Wheeler. Still, its place in history is assured as the first film appearance by Dorsey, Buddy Rich, and—as an uncredited chorus member—Frank Sinatra.
This according to “The Dorsey brothers: Filmdom’s favorites” by Robert L. Stockdale (The IAJRC journal XLI/2 [May 2008] pp. 46–57).
Today is Tommy Dorsey’s 110th birthday! Above, a still from Las Vegas nights showing Sinatra, far right in the back row (click to enlarge); below, an instrumental piece from the film.
In a 2014 interview, Neil Young discussed the making of his 35th studio album, Storytone.
“It was a great experience. I was in a room with all these musicians. We did it all at once. There’s no overdubs. ‘Be great or be gone’, that’s what my producer David Briggs always said. You only have one shot at a time and you can’t go fix it.”
“I knew where I wanted to go with the songs, and the orchestra had charts and an arranger and everything…It was done with up to a 90-piece orchestra. We did it live in the room like Sinatra.”
Some pop stars are remembered for their music, some for their style; but Elvis Presley may be the only one who’s also remembered for a peanut butter sandwich—not just any peanut butter sandwich, but one that adds bananas and sometimes bacon to the mix and is typically pan-fried or finished on a griddle.
The Elvis actually predates Elvis Presley. Indeed, the sandwich has its roots in what the food blogger Tina the Mom describes as “Southern po’ folks cuisine”. It seems as if every celebrity chef now offers a recipe for it, and in a food world that can never leave well enough alone there’s been a push to reinvent the sandwich in myriad ways.
What’s behind the fascination with this dense mess of comfort food? It begins with the fact that Presley, despite his royal status, always retained a fondness for the simple things in life. Then again, the Elvis isn’t quite so simple, and its over-the-top aspect is perhaps key to the appreciation of both man and sandwich.
The group New Order’s World in motion, commissioned by the British Football Association to mark the 1990 World Cup soccer finals, “is probably the least likely official football theme song ever recorded: Denying its own status as a football song, introducing elements of subcultural love lyrics, and becoming a gay club hit, but also assuming the burden of combating football’s major peripheral problem, hooliganism, the song is ultimately unheimlich, even despite its closing chorus that speaks of ‘playing for England; playing this song.’”
This according to “Playing for England” by Paul Smith (South Atlantic quarterly 90/4 [fall 1991] pp. 737–752). Smith goes on to note that “both the BBC and the independent television companies forewent the pleasure of having ‘Love’s got the world in motion’ going across the airwaves every night, and the BBC used as their World Cup theme another piece of music that quickly became a number one hit: Luciano Pavarotti singing his version of the Nessun dorma aria from Turandot.”
Today would have been Pavarotti’s 80th birthday! Below, singing Nessun dorma in 1994.
This new journal presents research and theory in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary subject field that engages with a range of parent disciplines, including—but not limited to—sociology, musicology, humanities, cultural studies, geography, philosophy, psychology, history, and the natural sciences.
When tropicalismo erupted on the horizon of Brazilian popular music in the late 1960s, the Brazilian military dictatorship was in full swing. Not surprisingly, resistance, irreverence, and political confrontation became defining features of the movement, which in turn led the military government to pay very close attention to tropicalismo’s protagonists.
Gal Costa’s career unfolded in this highly charged context. She was the only female performer who was associated with tropicalismo from the very beginning and throughout the movement’s traumatic developments, and therefore became the muse-in-residence for all the tropicalists, and the most revered interpreter of their works.
Costa had an enormous impact on the reception of tropicalismo and its aesthetics, especially through her irreverent stage presence and performing style. She took to heart the confrontational aspects of tropicalismo and embodied them in her stage persona, which was constructed from a combination of musical, visual, and theatrical elements.
One of the most distinct aspects of her performances was the intense sexuality and eroticism that emanated from her onstage. She was a very accomplished guitarist, and for most of her early career she would accompany herself on the guitar, playing the instrument as she sat with her legs widespread and animated by a sensual, provocative movement that made many conservative spectators a bit uncomfortable. Her mass of unruly hair added an animalistic intensity that was made all the more vivid through her wild and aggressive vocalizations.
Costa gave voice to several of the iconic songs of tropicalismo, many of which were composed specifically with her vocal qualities in mind. In her first live album, Fa-tal: Gal a todo vapor (1971), she crystallized all the defining elements of her style. The album became a classic in the history of Brazilian popular music, and was ranked the 20th greatest Brazilian album of all time by Rolling Stone Brasil.
The main entrance to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s exhibition Lou Reed: Caught between the twisted stars opens up on Lincoln Plaza, directly adjacent to the The Metropolitan Opera house. On a sunny day, the Met’s … Continue reading →
Seven strings/Сім струн (dedicated to Uncle Michael)* For thee, O Ukraine, O our mother unfortunate, bound, The first string I touch is for thee. The string will vibrate with a quiet yet deep solemn sound, The song from my heart … Continue reading →
Introduction: Dr. Philip Ewell, Associate Professor of Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, posted a series of daily tweets during Black History Month (February 2021) providing information on some under-researched Black … Continue reading →
For it [the Walkman] permits the possibility…of imposing your soundscape on the surrounding aural environment and thereby domesticating the external world: for a moment, it can all be brought under the STOP/START, FAST FOWARD, PAUSE and REWIND buttons. –Iain Chambers, “The … Continue reading →
