Music

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Current Affairs, Music, My back pages, Vespers

Jerry Leiber 1933-2011, Nick Ashford 1942-2011

August 23, 2011

Both were members of song writing teams that shifted the landscape of American popular music. The titles say it all: try to imagine a world without the Leiber-Stoller penned Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, Stand by Me, Yakety Yak, Kansas City, Is that All There Is? Everyone from Peggy Lee to Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen (check…

Music, Vespers

Dan Peek, Member of America, 1950-2011

July 27, 2011

You could almost call him the voice of America. Dan Peek‘s dry, wary baritone is the one you heard fronting such songs as A Horse with No Name, Tin Man, Ventura Highway and Lonely People. Some would say that America was at the forefront of the California sound that pervaded FM Radio back in the seventies;…

Film, Music, New York, Television, Theater, Vespers

Tom Aldredge, 1928-2011

July 25, 2011

Unless you are a fan of television’s Damages (guilty), most people are unfamiliar with the work of the great Tom Aldredge. On that show he played Glenn Close’s protector, the circumspect Uncle Pete in a subtle character portrayal that was typical of a man whose career made more of a mark on the Broadway stage,…

Music, Vespers

Amy Winehouse, Singer, Newest Member of the 27 Club, 1983-2011

July 23, 2011

Too sad for words. A real talent, gone too soon. RIP, miss…

Books, Film, Literature, Music, My back pages, Television

Born on the 21st of July

July 21, 2011

Cat Stevens

Art, Music, Vespers

Alexander Steinweiss, Inventor of the Album Cover 1917-2011

July 20, 2011

When Alexander Steinweiss pitched the idea of using original art on covers used to house vinyl records back in 1937, it revolutionized Columbia Records. Sales soared, and other companies followed suit. Album covers are all but dead now, miniaturized into jewel cases for CDs (whose death knell peals with the advent of MP3s), but some…

Music, Vespers

Clarence Clemons, Star Tenor Saxophonist 1942-2011

June 19, 2011

What makes a great album? It’s a delicate balance of artists, songs and those happy accidents of musicianship. Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run is a textbook example of how the stars aligned to bring us a once-in-a-lifetime work of art. If soul can be defined as an instrument, then pay attention to the work of…

Music, My back pages

Lady Sang the Blues…Phoebe Snow 1950-2011

April 27, 2011

Were any of us prepared for the phenomenon that was Phoebe Snow? In 1974 I was a senior in high school; along came Phoebe with her magnificent debut, a bouquet of tunes (Poetry Man, Harpo’s Blues, Either or Both, I Don’t Want the Night to End, Take Your Children Home, It Must be Sunday, No…

Film, Music, Theater

Hugh Martin, Composer 1914-2011

March 15, 2011

Crazy for Hugh: Any tunesmith who wrote The Trolley Song, The Boy Next Door and, enduringly, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, could die happy. Retrospect: Check this link to hear Garland sing The Trolley Song in Meet Me In St. Louis. RIP, mister…

Film, Music, Television, Theater

By Threes: George Shearing 1919-2011, Kenneth Mars 1936-2011, Betty Garrett 1919-2011

February 16, 2011

Retrospect: Check out Shearing’s collaborations with Mel Torme, or my favorite, The Swingin’s Mutual, the 1960 stunner with Nancy Wilson. Retrospect: The Producers, yeah, sure, but don’t forget Mars in Woody Allen’s Radio Days and Shadows and Fog–and what a crackup in What’s Up Doc?. A nonpareil in movie musicals until the Hollywood Blacklist killed…