Tag: Music

December 27, 1895: You Can Step on My Blue Suede Shoes, But Don’t You Touch My Stetson

Posted on by Richard Daybell

The night was clear and the moon was yellow
And the leaves came tumbling down

Many of us remember the hit recording from 1959 about an unfortunate bit of  barroom business between Billy Lyon and his good friend Stagger Lee. “Stagger Lee” topped the pop charts for Lloyd Price that year. Fewer of us will remember 1928’s “Stack O’ Lee Blues,” a version of the story by Mississippi John Hurt. And fewer still will remember the incident that inspired the song. It took place on December 27, 1895, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Shooting, fighting and general mayhem have found their way into many songs over the years, and often pop songs are based on true incidents – “Tom Dooley,” the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” The case of “Stag” Lee was duly reported by the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat under the headline “Shot in Curtis’s Place.”

I was standing on the corner
When I heard my bulldog bark
He was barkin’ at the two men
Who were gamblin’ in the dark

It was Stagger Lee and Billy
Two men who gambled late
Stagger Lee threw seven
Billy swore that he threw eight

The Globe-Democrat didn’t mention any gambling. According to its account, Stagger Lee and Billy were in “exuberant spirits” thanks to several rounds of John Barleycorn when they got to discussing politics. Well, a couple of “nattering nabobs” and “right-wing Neanderthals” later, the discussion took on heat, and Billy, in a precipitous move, snatched Stagger Lee’s hat from right atop his head. Such a move cannot go unanswered, and it didn’t.

Stagger Lee told Billy
I can’t let you go with that

You have won all my money
And my brand new stetson hat

Stagger Lee went home
And he got his forty-four
Said, I’m goin’ to the barroom
Just to pay that debt I owe

Go Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee drew his revolver and shot Billy in the stomach. When that poor boy fell to the floor Stagger Lee just took his hat from the dead man’s head and coolly strutted away into musical immortality. Go Stagger Lee, Go Stagger Lee.

December 26, 1921: Hi, Ho, Stevarino

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Although Steve Allen, born December 26, 1921, was a musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer, he is best known for his career in television. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and then became the first host of The Tonight Show, initiating the format that television talk shows would follow from then on.

Moving from late night to prime time television, he hosted numerous game and variety shows, most notably The Steve Allen Show, going head to head with Ed Sullivan and Maverick on Sunday evenings. It was there he developed the man on the street interviews which featured Don Knotts, Tom Poston and Louis Nye among others.

Allen was a comedy writer and author of more than 50 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Dumbth, a commentary on the American educational system, and Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality.

Allen was also a pianist and a prolific composer, writing over 14,000 songs, some of which were recorded by Perry Como, Margaret Whiting, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Les Brown, and Oscar Peterson. He won a Grammy in 1963 for best jazz composition, with his song The Gravy Waltz. He also wrote lyrics for the standards “Picnic” and “South Rampart Street Parade.” He once won a bet with Frankie Laine that he could write 50 songs a day for a week. His output of songs has never been equaled.

He died in 2000.

December 25, 1914: Over There

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Just after midnight on December 25, 1914, British, French and Russian troops at European battle fronts were stunned as German joyeauxtroops ceased firing and began to sing Christmas carols — in some cases, even backed up by oompah bands.

World War I had begun five months earlier and would continue for another devastating four years. This spontaneous Christmas truce continued through the night and into daylight when many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and called out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. Finally, Allied soldiers, seeing that the Germans were unarmed, climbed out of their trenches as well. Men from both sides ventured through the so-called No Man’s Land to shake hands with the enemy. The men exchanged small presents and sang carols and songs. In one case, soldiers played an international soccer game.

It was, of course, short-lived as both sides went back to their business of killing each other.  (This true story is told in the 2005 French film Joyeux Noel.)

♥

On Christmas Day in 1941 Bing Crosby introduced a new Christmas song on his weekly NBC radio program. The song, written by Jewish composer and lyricist Irving Berlin, went on to become the gold standard of Christmas music — the top-selling Christmas single ever and the top-selling single of any kind for another 55 years.

The success of “White Christmas” came as no surprise to Berlin, who was already a musical legend. He modestly called it “the best song I ever wrote…the best song anybody ever wrote.” Although Berlin did not celebrate Christmas, it was a day that did hold special meaning to him: his infant son died on December 25, 1928. That perhaps explains some of the ambiguous emotional strength of the song.

 

November 29, 1924: Don’t Shoot the Soprano

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Giacomo Puccini, who died on November 29, 1924, was a giant in Italian opera, unrivaled in orchestration and a sense of theater. Passion, sensuality, tenderness, pathos and despair infused such operas as Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot.

Tosca was one of Puccini’s greatest operas, but it seems to have taken on a bit of a curse, like that Scottish play whose title shall not be uttered in the theater. More things have evidently gone awry in Tosca than in any other opera.  A few vivid examples:

Exit Stage Left . . . Exit Damnit: In Act II of a performance of Tosca featuring Maria Callas in the title role, Tosca stabs her tormentor Scarpia, and then leaves the stage. After doing the deed, Callas who suffered from myopia but couldn’t wear contact lenses wandered the stage, unable to find her way out. Baritone Tito Gobbi, our Scarpia, while lying dead, tried to discreetly point out the exit, but started laughing so much that both his laughing and his pointing were obvious to the audience. The next morning, newspapers raved about his memorable portrayal of Scarpia’s death.

They Shoot Divas, Don’t They?: In another performance, a firing squad is called upon to execute Tosca’s lover Mario in the final act. The players were instructed to enter and shoot the person they found onstage, and then to exit with the principals. But when the players got onstage, they discovered two people and didn’t know which one to shoot. They aimed at one then the other as both principals said not to shoot them. They finally chose Tosca, but when they shot her, Mario keeled over dead. They stood there, further bewildered; they had been told to exit with the principals but neither of the principals were exiting. Mario remained lifeless while Tosca tried to shoo them away. Finally, when Tosca jumped to her death from the castle parapet, they seized the opportunity to exit with at least one principal, and they jumped after her, adding immeasurably to the tragedy.

Follow the Bouncing Diva: Tosca’s leap to her death  from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo is the dramatic conclusion to the opera. Various methods have been employed to keep the jumping soprano safe; usually a mattress does the trick. In a Lyric Opera of Chicago performance,  stage hands replaced the usual mattress with a trampoline to provide added safety for a British soprano. They also added some unintended encores as Tosca bounced back into view several times.

 

November 27, 1703: What Do We Do with a Drunken Sailor?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

The Eddystone Lighthouse sits atop the treacherous Eddystone Rocks off the coast of the United Kingdom. The current lighthouse is actually the fourth to hold sway there.

eddystoneThe original Eddystone Lighthouse was an octagonal wooden structure whose light first shone in November of 1698. It was destroyed just five years later on November 27 during the Great Storm of 1703. The unfortunate builder Henry Winstanley was on the lighthouse, completing additions to the structure at the time. No trace was found of him, or of the other five men in the lighthouse.

The fame of the lighthouse spread well beyond those using it for guidance in the English Channel. It became the subject of a sea shanty sung by drunken sailors around the world. Shanties are those songs sung on board ship to relieve the boredom of shipboard tasks, but during the 20th century and particularly during the mid-century folk craze, sea shanties were adopted by landlubbers everywhere. The Eddystone Light became a particular favorite of many a drunken sailor, armed with a guitar or banjo and a good supply of beer, no matter how far away the nearest navigable waters.

 

 

 

November 23, 534 BC: Another Opening, Another Show

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Back in the 6th century BC, Greek theatrical performances were generally dithyrambs, choral offerings featuring stories from mythology sung by a chorus of anywhere from a dozen to fifty singers They usually wore masks and might even dance a little. Whatever they did, they did in lockstep.

Then on November 23, 534 BC, a member of one of these choruses known as Thespis of Icaria stepped out of the anonymity of the chorus and spoke several lines not as himself, but portraying the character of the Greek God Dionysus. Well, this had never been done before. No one had ever assumed the character of another person for storytelling Thespis thus became the world’s first actor.

This new idea quickly caught on, and individual actors began to portray different characters in their stories which they now called tragedies. Pretty soon scores of Greeks were saying to each other “Gee, we could put on a play in Farmer Brown’s barn.” And taking their tragedies on the road.

Thespis was the most popular actor of the day, winning the first wooden horse for best actor in a tragedy. And he took his shows on the road, carrying with him costumes, masks and props from town to town. This made him not only the father of theater but also the father of theatrical touring. And actors throughout history have called themselves Thespians in his honor.

Let’s Get a Recording of That Greek Chorus

The scene is the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, November 23, 1889. Entrepreneur Louis Glass has installed a machine destined to become an overnight sensation, and find a permanent spot in the psyche of the nation, even the world. He called his device the “nickel-in-the-slot player” a name that would certainly need a bit of massaging in the future.

What it played was music. Inside a handsome oak cabinet was an electric phonograph.  Four stethoscope-like tubes were attached to it, each operating individually after being activated by the insertion of a coin. Four different listeners could be plugged into the same song at the same time! In a nod to sanitation, towels were supplied to patrons so they could wipe off the end of the tube after each listening.

The success of the “nickel-in-the-slot player” eventually spelled the demise of the player piano, then the most common way of providing popular music to saloon patrons, notorious for their love of music.

Most machines were capable of holding only one musical selection, the automation coming from the ability to play that one selection at will. Obviously, after each patron had listened to that one song several times, the novelty wore off and the player went idle. In 1918, another entrepreneur solved that problem with an apparatus that automatically changed records. Ten years later, enter Justus P. Seeburg, who combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with a coin-operated record player that gave the listener a choice of eight records.

This machine was pretty cumbersome: it had eight separate turntables mounted on a rotating Ferris wheel-like device, allowing patrons to select from eight different records. Later versions included Seeburg’s Selectophone, with 10 turntables mounted vertically on a spindle. By maneuvering the tone arm up and down, the customer could select from 10 different records.

There was still no decent name for these devices. That came in the 1940s, when person or persons unknown dubbed it a jukebox, a reference to juke house, slang for a bawdy house, a favorite location for the devices. All that remained necessary in the evolution of the jukebox was the addition of a healthy helping of rock and roll.

November 22, 1928: Au Fou, Au Fou

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubenstein convinced her friend Maurice Ravel to write her a Spanish flavored ballet in 1928. The composer had long considered the idea of structuring an entire composition around a single theme. The theme came to him on a vacation a few month’s later. He sat at a piano playing a melody with one finger. As he played, he said to a friend: ‘Don’t you think that has an insistent quality? I’m going to try to repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.”

Bolero was born. It was performed on November 22, 1928, at the Paris Opera. The 15-minute work was received with thunderous acclaim — cheering, shouting, foot stomping. One woman was heard screaming “Au fou, au fou!” (the madman, the madman). Ravel’s reaction, when told of it: “That lady, she understood.”

Rarely staged as a ballet in later years, Bolero became Ravel’s most popular work, although he considered it one of his least important. “Once the idea of using only one theme was discovered,” he said, “any conservatory student could have done as well.”

Time Flies Like an Arrow

Robin Hood has been celebrated through story, song and film as that charming rogue who, along with his merry men, robbed from the 1 percent and gave to the 99 percent, a nobleman cheated out of his birthright by the nasty Sheriff of Nottingham, a patriot in service to Richardrobin hood the Lionhearted, fighting the villainy of that usurper Prince John.

To the consternation of the authorities, Robin Hood and his merry gang carried out their trade for a number of years.  But as Robin Hood ushered in his 87th year, his arrows began to get a little wobbly and off-target. He increasingly felt the infirmities of his age, and was eventually convinced to seek medical attention at the local nunnery. The prioress evidently took an instant dislike to the merry old man, which she vented by opening up an artery and allowing him to bleed to death. The date of his demise is reckoned to be November 22, 1247.

But before he turned his toes completely up, Robin realized that he was the victim of treachery (flowing blood will do that), and he blew a blast on his bugle (kept handily at his bedside for just such a situation). This summoned his compatriot Little John who forced his way into the chamber in time to hear his chief’s last request. “Give me my bent bow in my hand,” he said. “And an arrow I’ll let free, and where that arrow is taken up, there let my grave digged be.” Rhyming right to the end. Which came just after he shot the arrow through an open window, selecting the spot where he should be buried. Which he was.

November 18, 1307: Fun with Apples

Posted on by Richard Daybell

It is the dawn of the 14th century and the hundredth anniversary of Austrian rule over Switzerland. Every little Heidi up in Heidiville and william tellevery one of her goats are under the cruel dominion of the Habsburgs. It is November 18, 1307, and a legend is about to be born.

It’s a day of grand celebration for the Austrians (the Swiss, not so much). Soldiers sing of the glories of the Emperor and his appointed local despot Gesler. The evil Gesler has had his hat placed on top of a pole, forcing the Swiss to bow and scrape and generally pay homage to the hat – one of those silly felt things with a feather in it. Gesler also commands that there should be dancing and singing to mark the century during which the Austrian empire has dominated the 98-pound weaklings of Switzerland. Gioachino Rossini and his Italian Racals are on hand to provide appropriate music.

Among the Swiss that day is one William Tell, known among his compatriots as a strong man, a mountain climber, and a whiz with the crossbow. Well, doesn’t Tell pass right by that hat, refusing to bow to it. And doesn’t his son (like father. . .) do just the same. Gesler is really put out and has the pair arrested.  Aware of Tell’s amazing marksmanship, Gesler devises an ingenious punishment: Tell must shoot an apple off the head of his son. If he refuses, they both will be immediately executed. At this point, you can cut the tension with a Swiss Army knife. Rossini strikes up the band.  As every schoolboy knows (if you don’t know, go find a schoolboy), Tell splits the apple with a single bolt (that’s an arrow) from his crossbow. Rossini’s Rascals break into a rollicking version of the William Tell Overture. (In the Lone Ranger, this same music was used to introduce the scene where Tonto shoots an apple from kemo sabe’s head.)

Ah, but sharp-eyed Gesler notices that Tell has taken not one but two crossbow bolts from his quiver. Gesler quizzes Tell, who answers that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gesler himself. Well, Gesler is now pretty pissed and has Tell carted off to prison.

Crossing Lake Lucerne, prison-bound, the soldiers, afraid their boat will founder, release strongman Tell to steer. Tell escapes, tracks down Gesler, places an apple on his head, and misses it by just that much. He shouts out, “Hi yo Switzerland,” Heidis and goats frolic on hillsides, Swiss watches begin keeping perfect time, and the Swiss Confederation is born.

 

AUGUST 31, 1928: LOOK OUT FOR LOTTE LENYA

Posted on by Richard Daybell

With music by Kurt Weill and words by Bertolt Brecht, Die Dreigoschenoper premiered in Berlin in 1928. By 1933, when Brecht and Weill were forced to leave Germany, the musical comedy which offers a socialist view of a capitalist world had been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times. We of course are more familiar with the English title, The Threepenny Opera.  And we’re mostly familiar with the opening song which has been sung by practically everyone, most notably, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald in a grammy-winning performance, and Bobby Darin who made it the top song of 1959 – “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer” (“The Ballad of Mack the Knife”). The song was added just before the premiere, when the actor playing Macheath threatened to quit if his character did not receive an introduction.

 

At the beginning of the play, we meet Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, a London entrepreneur who runs the city’s begging operation, training the beggars and taking a nice chunk of their earnings. He is the perfect capitalist, a man who today would work for Goldman Sachs.

But Peachum has problems: his grown daughter Polly did not return home the previous night, and Peachum fears she has been misbehaving, and worse still, misbehaving with the ne’er-do-well Macheath.  Peachum does what any worried father would do – he determines to thwart this budding relationship by taking away her cell phone and having her paramour hanged.

Fade to Macheath who is preparing to marry Polly once his gang has stolen her trousseau. After the gang has stolen some food and a table, they all enjoy a wedding banquet. Polly entertains with a charming little song about a maid who becomes a pirate queen and executes her former bosses and customers. The Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, joins the party. It seems he had served with Macheath during the wars and had, over the years, exerted his influence to keep Macheath out of jail. He and Macheath sing. Polly returns home and lays the fact that she has married Macheath on her parents who are not amused. She sings a charming little song advising them to go fuck themselves, bringing the first act to a conclusion.

In Act Two, Polly warns Macheath that her father is gunning for British bear and that he must leave London. He agrees and leaves his gang in Polly’s hands. On his way out of town, Macheath stops at his favorite brothel, where he sees his ex-lover, Jenny. They sing a charming little song (“Pimp’s Ballad”) about their days together, but (the plot having thickened) Jenny has been bribed by Mrs Peachum to turn him in. Despite Brown’s apologies, he’s powerless and must drag Macheath away to jail. Macheath sings a charming little song about his life being over.   Another girlfriend, Lucy (Brown’s daughter) and Polly arrive at the same time from stage right and stage left, respectively.  A nasty argument ensues and together they sing a charming little duet about scratching each other’s eyes out. After Polly leaves, Lucy engineers Macheath’s escape, bringing the act to a tidy conclusion.

In Act Three, Jenny selfishly demands her money for the betrayal of Macheath, which Mrs Peachum refuses to pay.  Jenny nevertheless reveals that Macheath is at Suky Tawdry’s house, and he is once again arrested. Back in jail and scheduled to be executed, Macheath desperately tries to raise the bribe money to get out again, even as the gallows are being erected.  But no one comes to his aid, and Macheath prepares to die.  He laments his fate in a charming little song.  But what’s this? A deus ex machina enters stage left. Peachum announces that in this opera mercy will prevail over justice, and in a parody of a happy ending, a messenger from the Queen arrives to pardon Macheath and grant him a title, a castle and a pension. The play then ends with a plea that wrongdoing not be punished too harshly as life is harsh enough.

AUGUST 26, 1851: DOO-DA, DOO-DA

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Picture a young man sitting on an elaborate veranda on a warm afternoon. Off to his right a beautiful river languidly flows on its journey from the swamps of Georgia to the Gulf Mexico; on the left, fields of cotton stretch into the distance. He is sipping a mint julep perhaps, and listening to the lilting voices of the slaves as they sing a happy song while picking cotton for their beloved “massa.” Life is good, everyone thinks, and hopes it will stay just like this forever.

The young man is inspired to pen a song: “Way down upon de Swanee Ribber, Far, far away. Dere’s wha my heart is turning ebber, Dere’s wha de old folks stay.”

The young man is, of course, Stephen C. Foster, one of America’s best-loved musical storytellers, who wrote “Old Folks at Home” (or Swanee River) in 1851, one of about 200 songs he authored during his prolific career.

While working as a bookkeeper in Cincinnati, Foster wrote his first successful songs — among them “Oh! Susanna,” and “Nelly Was a Lady”, made famous by the blackface Christy Minstrels. During the following years, Foster wrote most of his best-known songs for the Christy Minstrels: “Camptown Races,” “Nelly Bly,” “Old Folks at Home”, “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair.”

Many of Foster’s songs were not original; he was a “Songcatcher,” writing down songs that had been passed down for generations. And about him sitting on that southern veranda – erase that. Foster chose the Suwannee River that flows through Florida because it fit the meter of the song; he never set foot in the state. Nor the south. He visited only once, on a riverboat voyage down the Mississippi – after he had written the songs.

Swanee River became the Florida state song in 1935. In an episode of Jackie Gleason’s “Honeymooners” called The $99,000 Answer, Ed Norton warms up on the piano by playing the opening to “Swanee River.” Later, on the game show of the title, the first question asked is, “Who is the composer of “Swanee River?” Ralph nervously responds with “Ed Norton,” and loses the game.

Chances are, those slaves picking cotton were not all that happy either.

—

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. ― Frederick Douglass