Perhaps more than any other state, Tennessee is associated with music. The state, its cities, natural features, and historical events have been the subject of thousands of popular songs written and performed in almost every style. The idea of Tennessee is so popular that it has inspired great songwriting and performances not only by native Tennesseans but by people from all over the world.
My homeland Tennessee: A research guide to songs about Tennessee preserves and presents historic documents and recordings that illuminate Tennessee as represented in blues, ragtime, rock’n’roll, rap, folk, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, and other styles. This open-access resource also includes a special section on the several official state songs of Tennessee.
In the 1960s many rock bands were funny some of the time; only a few made humor about as much of the act as music was.
In the U.S., only two such bands did so with consistent brilliance: the Mothers of Invention and the Fugs. The international, and kinder and gentler, branch of that triangle of major rock comics was represented by England’s Bonzo Dog Band.
The Bonzos had only one big hit in the U.K. with I’m the urban spaceman, and some Beatles-glamor-by-association due to a cameo appearance in the Magical mystery tour film. In the U.S. they remained a cult band.
Sometimes compared to the Mothers of Invention, particularly in their zany stage shows and their facility for parodying multiple pop genres, the Bonzos lacked the savage cynicism that powered Frank Zappa’s brand of wit. As compensation, they offered a more whimsical, surreal take on the absurd that was in some ways more sonically versatile, encompassing not just rock but also prewar music hall, jazz, and spoken word.
This according to “The Bonzo Dog Band” by Richie Unterberger, an essay included in Urban spacemen and wayfaring strangers: Overlooked innovators and eccentric visionaries of ’60s rock (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000, pp. 109–121).
Below, the Bonzos perform Death cab for cutie, the song that the American alt-rock band took for its name; the performance starts around 0:50.
Music Monday is an annual event sponsored by Canada’s Coalition for Music Education; each year it unites hundreds of thousands of young people through their schools and communities from coast to coast through a simultaneous musical event on the first Monday of May.
Singing and playing the official Music Monday song brings attention to the importance of music as part of a well-rounded education. I.S.S. (Is somebody singing), the official song for Music Monday 2013, was commissioned by the Coalition and CBC Music and written by the astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield—the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station—and singer/songwriter Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies.
On Monday 6 May 2013 Hadfield performed the song from the International Space Station while Robertson, the Barenaked Ladies, and the Wexford Gleeks (the choir of the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts), performed from Earth.
This according to “Building a voice that cannot be ignored!” by Holly Nimmons (Canadian music educator/Musicien éducateur au Canada LIV/3 [spring 2013] pp. 20–23).
Today is Music Monday’s 10th anniversary! Below, Hadfield, the Ladies, and the Gleeks perform I.S.S. for Music Monday 2013.
On this day in 1864 all of the children in the parish schools marched in procession with flowers and wreaths, along with the Cheshire Rifle Volunteers Band and a cart carrying the May Queen and her ladies-in-waiting. Then, as now, the procession ended on the Heath in the center of town, where the Queen was crowned.
Today the tradition is augmented with several dances, both as part of the procession and as displays before and after the crowning; morris, hornpipe, and sword dances are among the perennial favorites. Maypole dances round out the proceedings.
This according to “Royal May Day!” by Derek Schofield (English dance and song LXXVI/1 [spring 2014] pp. 32–35). Below, selections from the 145th celebration.
Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of scales and melodic patterns (1947) is a highly systematic compendium of templates for composition and improvisation.
In an interview, Slonimsky stated that “the scales are compositions and they also provide materials for more extended compositions…I wrote several works in those scales.”
“Everybody warned me that only dyed-in-the-wool academics would touch the Thesaurus, but what actually happened was that academics did not care at all for it. So who picked it up? Jazz players!”
“I have interviewed McCoy Tyner, Coltrane’s pianist for a number of years, and he directly confirmed Coltrane’s use of the book. [According to Tyner,] Coltrane carried the book with him constantly during the years 1957 to ’59…He always took it with him when he travelled on concert tours, and…practiced it as part of his daily routine.”
Quoted in “Conversation with Nicolas Slonimsky about his composing” by Richard Kostelanetz (The musical quarterly LXXIV/3 [1990] pp. 458–72).
Today is Slonimsky’s 120th birthday! Below, selections from the Thesaurus played on electric guitar; a full open-source publication of the work is here.
BONUS: Coltrane’s Giant steps and Countdown, both of which are thought to have been influenced by Slonimsky’s Thesaurus.
An essential reference resource for scholars of global hymnody, with information on the hymns of many countries and languages and a strong emphasis on the historical as well as the contemporary, The Canterbury dictionary ofhymnology contains over 4000 individual entries and more than 300 authors from over 30 countries writing on hymns of the Judaeo-Christian tradition—from the earliest years to those written today—along with articles on individual hymns, authors from many countries, hymnals, organizations, themes, and hymn tunes and their composers.
Covering a multitude of hymn traditions from all continents, regions, and denominations, the database is ecumenical and international, and is published online to facilitate regular additions, amendments, and corrections. Intended as a replacement for the Dictionary of hymnology produced by John Julian in 1892 (with a supplement in 1907), it will be of interest to literary scholars, musicians, church historians, and theologians, and will be a delight for those who love the hymn as an art form. Each day three articles are made available to the public for one day.
Below, an example of African American lined-out hymn singing.
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Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (1924–2005) spent his career fighting purism by synthesizing old blues, country, jazz, Cajun, and R & B styles.
Asked in an interview about his early blues-based recordings, he gave a practical answer: “I had to sound like that because I was just starting out. Seeing as how I was a newcomer, I obliged.”
“But after a while, I thought, ‘Why do I have to be one of these old cryin’ and moanin’ guitar players always talking bad about women?’ So I just stopped. That’s when I started having horns and piano in my band, and started playing arrangements more like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, rather than some old hardcore Mississippi Delta stuff.”
An examination of Bessie Smith’s first two released recordings—Down hearted blues and Gulf Coast blues—demonstrates that her interpretative originality and expressive individuality were evident from the start of her recording career in 1923.
Full transcriptions of her vocal line on each of these recordings combined with detailed descriptions and analysis of the pitch content, the main rhythmic and melodic characteristics, and the melodic-harmonic and text-music relationships reveal the micro-components of Smith’s early vocal tendencies, demonstrating how, although Smith’s phrases display some similarities with each other, they constantly vary in imaginative ways, matching her with the great jazz improvisers.
This according to “Bessie Smith: Down hearted blues and Gulf coast blues revisited by Alona Sagee (Popular music XXVI/1 [January 2007] pp. 117–127).
Today is Bessie Smith’s 120th birthday! Above, the singer in 1923, the year of the recordings; below, the recordings themselves.
In a 2006 interview, Jack Casady recalled the development of the EpiphoneJack Casady Signature Bass: “When I first started playing, I ran across a short scale semi-hollow bass. Despite lacking some low end, I really enjoyed the semi-hollow nature of that bass and over the years tried to capture that characteristic.”
“In 1985 I was living in New York and happened to stop in a music store one day and saw a goldtop, full scale semi-hollow Les Paul bass. I loved the bass but found the pickup to be deficient…I did a little investigating and found out that only about 400 of the instruments were made in 1972 and because it was kind of an odd duck, it didn’t catch on.”
“I approached Gibson and asked if they would be interested in reproducing the bass with my input. Epiphone’s Jim Rosenberg was very interested, and allowed me to kind of re-make the instrument. I told Jim that I’d like to develop a Jack Casady pickup for it and he hooked me up with the R&D Department at Gibson.”
“I went to work on the pickup and it took almost two years to develop. I think they were getting pretty antsy by this time but I wanted it right. I did a lot of homework and bench testing and finally when it clicked in right, it was great. They blow the old Gibsons to smithereens, even in the construction. As you know, the early 70s weren’t good for cars or guitars (laughs) and the workmanship that’s coming in on these instruments is just super.”
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 →
