Although the genre was yet to be named, the addition of Earl Scruggs (1924–2012) to Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys provided the crowning moment in the definition of bluegrass.
Scruggs astounded everyone. His extraordinary banjo style allowed him to roll out a rapid barrage of notes that nevertheless sounded out the melody as clearly as the fiddle.
What is now known as “Scruggs-style” banjo playing became the final critical component of Bill Monroe’s undeniably distinctive sound that would eventually be called bluegrass.
This according to Homegrown music: Discovering bluegrass by Stephanie P. Ledgin (Westport: Praeger, 2004).
Today is Scrugg’s 90th birthday! Above, Monroe, Lester Flatt, and Scruggs at the Grand Ole Opry in 1945; below, Scruggs and friends on David Letterman’s show in 2001.
“None of us knew we were making history” said Earl “Fatha” Hines (1903–83) in a 1981 interview. “To us, every one of those sessions was just one more recording.”
Hines was speaking of the recordings that he made with Louis Armstrong in 1928 and the following years—recordings now considered enduring jazz masterpieces, not least due to the pairing of Armstrong’s trumpet and Hines’s avowed “trumpet-style” piano playing.
“My father was a cornet player, and I wanted to play that instrument when I was growing up. But playing it hurt me behind my ears, so I learned the piano instead. And I started playing on the piano what I had wanted to play on the cornet.”
In so doing, Hines freed the piano from its limited role as a rhythm instrument, playing hornlike phrases that cut across the regular patterns that the bass and drum were playing. He enriched his style further by using his classical training to introduce rich chords and piquant dissonances.
In 1924 Hines met Armstrong over a game of pool. Soon they were working together, for, as the pianist recalled, “he was playing the same style that I wanted to play.”
This according to “Fatha Hines: Stomping and chomping on at 75” by Robert Palmer (The New York times 28 August 1981).
Today is Hines’s 110th birthday! Below, Joe “King” Oliver’s Weather bird in a masterful 1928 duet with Armstrong.
Asked whether he saw any similarity between the roles of rock star and pirate lord, Richards said “Actually, you could look at it like that. Both are ways to make a good dishonest living.”
“The music business has never been any different. It’s a pool of piranhas. You want to get in there? You better not be tasty.”
This according to “Johnny Depp & Keith Richards: Pirates of the Caribbean’s blood brothers” by David Wild (Rolling stone 1027 [31 May 2007]).
Today is Richards’s 70th birthday! Below, Edward Teague comes to life.
After the American rock star and poet Jim Morrison’s death in 1971 fans used increasingly transgressive means to commemorate him at his grave at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris.
Before crowd-control barriers and permanent police surveillance were put in place in 2004, the site abounded in illegal drug use and drunkenness as a way to celebrate and honor Morrison’s commitment to living life on the edge. Many fans describe him as a shaman.
Direct body contact with the site was important for some, with women lying naked and couples engaging in sexual sessions on the grave.
Now many of these celebrations of the senses have moved to a café next to the cemetery, and the gravesite is visited only for silent contemplation.
This according to “The performance of a cult of the senses: A feast of fans at Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris” by Peter Jan Margry (Traditiones: Zbornik Inštituta za Slovensko Narodopisje/Acta Instituti Ethnographiae Slovenorum XXXVI/1 [2007] pp. 141–152).
Today would have been Morrison’s 70th birthday! Below, The Doors’ iconic Light my fire prefaced by one of Morrison’s poems, live in 1968; Morrison prepares to resume singing around 8:40.
When Maria Callas returned to Greece to inaugurate the 1957 Athens Festival her demand for an unusually high fee created much antagonism, and she vowed that she would not perform in the country again.
However, in 1959 Κostis Bastias (1901–72) took charge of the administration of the Ethnikī Lyrikī Skīnī (Greek National Theater) and invited Callas to star in an opera in the ancient theater of Epidaurus. Since its opening in 1954, the Epidaurus Festival had only included performances of ancient Greek dramas by Ethnikī Lyrikī Skīnī; performances by other troupes were not allowed.
Finally, Callas consented to present Bellini’s Norma at the festival in 1960, and decided to donate her fee to a scholarship foundation. The performance was a resounding success, and she returned to Epidaurus a year later to present Cherubini’s Médée, further eroding Ethnikī Lyrikī Skīnī’s monopoly.
Today is Callas’s 90th birthday! Above, a Greek stamp commemorates her Norma at Epidaurus; below, a slide show includes photographs from the Epidaurus production of Médée.
For his 1972 album Sail awayRandy Newman took practically all pre-rock American vernacular music styles and reworked the genres with ironic, sarcastic, and sometimes caustic lyrics that might have shocked Tin Pan Alley-era audiences.
Because of the elaborate settings of many of the songs—including Newman’s piano, traditional rock instruments, and symphony orchestra—the pieces take on a parallel life as a kind of song cycle that explores the ironies of life throughout much of recorded history. The universality of the subject matter and the deliberately retro style of the song forms, rhythmic styles, and harmonic and melodic vocabulary all combine to make Sail away an album that continues to ring true.
This according to “Randy Newman: Sail away (1972)” by James E. Perone, an essay included in The album: A guide to pop music’s most provocative, influential, and important creations. II: The golden age of the singer-songwriter, 1970-1973 (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012).
Today is Randy Newman’s 70th birthday! Above, the original album cover; below, Newman performs the title song.
The Beatles, a.k.a. The white album, contests the arbitrary distinction between popular music and political engagement through its radical eclecticism and self-reflexivity. The album outlines a new way of being political—a postmodern politics—that was and still is to a large extent erroneously seen as escapism.
Critics from the New Left charge that the disparate styles and self-conscious references on the record signal the Beatles’ disregard of politics; but this perspective implies that there is only one way of being political, and fails to consider the historical circumstances that give any use of parody its particular significance.
By 1968 corporate attempts to manipulate rock artists and fans were reaching a peak, and early rock and roll had lost much of its initially subversive allure. Concurrently, the Beatles found themselves lauded for their masterpiece, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The Beatles’ turn to parody then serves not as an escape from but as a specific response to key cultural tensions: the self-reflexivity and ironic appropriation of various styles on the album allowed the Beatles to contest the commodification of rock music even as they challenged assumptions about what constitutes political relevance.
This according to “We all want to change the world: Postmodern politics and the Beatles’ White album” by Jeffrey Roessner, an essay included in Reading the Beatles: Cultural studies, literary criticism, and the Fab Four (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006, pp. 147–158).
Today is The white album’s 45th birthday! Below, documentary footage of the album’s creation.
Italian opera has played an important role in Russian musical life since the early 17th century, but by the 19th century it was being promoted there more than Russian opera. In retaliation, Russian composers used their operas to make fun of Italian opera’s stock situations and styles, and brought Russian opera back into prominence.
For example, in his early comic farce Богатыри (Bogatyri, Heroic warriors), Borodin used familiar music and arias from Italian and French operas (by Rossini, Verdi, Offenbach, Meyerbeer, and others) to set up situations where the original intention of the music and its new setting were at humorous extremes.
This according to “Italians in a Russian manner: One step from serious to funny” by Svetlana Sergeevna Martynova (Fontes artis musicae LVI/1 [January–March 2009] pp. 1–6).
Today is Borodin’s 180th birthday! Below, the opening of his B-minor symphony, which Massine used for his ballet Bogatyri, illustrated with images of the heroic warriors of Russian folklore.
Joni Mitchell’s early records mapped the sexual terrain of the mid-1960s—the period during which premarital sex lost its taboo status and became a normative part of maturation and development—from a woman’s perspective.
With their strong storytelling component, Mitchell’s songs put into popular circulation narratives of sexual freedom that engaged with emerging social practices, helping to legitimize the new choices available to young women.
This according to “Feeling free and female sexuality: The aesthetics of Joni Mitchell” by Marilyn Adler Papayanis (Popular music and society XXXIII/5 [December 2010] pp. 641–656).
Today is Mitchell’s 70th birthday! Below, a 1970 performance of Cactus tree, one of the songs discussed in the article.
Although Ned Rorem had composed little organ music until he was in his 50s, his output for the instrument since that time has been considerable, making him the most prolific living U.S. composer for the organ.
Rorem says that he writes music that he wants to hear, and composes out of necessity because no one else is making what he needs.
This according to The organ works of Ned Rorem by John David Marsh, a dissertation accepted by Rice University in 2002.
Today is Rorem’s 90th birthday! Below, Jung Jin Kim performs “Mary Dyer did hang as a flag” from A Quaker reader.
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