Yesterday was the first day of summer. As I write this there are still protests in the streets of most cities in the U.S. For the past two weeks I have been writing about music and racism. And this week, I am writing about an aria from an American opera written by two white men about African Americans in the 1930s.

Porgy and Bess was originally a 1925 book by the author DuBose Heyward entitled Porgy. By 1927, Heyward and his wife, Dorothy had turned the book into a play. By 1933, George and Ira Gershwin had entered the picture, signing a contract to turn the book/play into an opera. Let me stress here that all of these people were Caucasian.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the plot of Porgy: The play tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black beggar who lives in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. It relates his efforts to rescue Bess, the woman he loves, from Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and a drug dealer called Sporting Life. All of the characters in the opera are people of color. All of the people writing the opera were white.

I am not saying that Porgy and Bess is not a great opera, it is quite possibly the greatest American opera ever written. It has managed to cross the bounds of what is opera and what is musical theatre. It has consistently had only people of color in the cast. No black-face here, thank goodness. I am just saying that the people behind the production were all white.

What I really want to look at this week is the song Summertime, a beautiful aria. (Remember that aria is just the fancy, Italian way of saying a song in an opera. It translates directly as air.) Summertime is the first thing you hear when the curtain rises. The character, Clara, is holding her baby and singing a lullaby. That’s right, Summertime, the song that you hear divas going full-volume on is a lullaby.

In singing, we talk about different registers within the voice. There is a chest voice, middle register, and the head tones. The chest voice is called this because it feels like it is resonating in the chest. You can feel the vibrations there. (In actuality, the voice cannot be resonating in the chest, because that is below the vocal cords.) Then there is the middle register. Between the chest and middle range is where most people sing. Then come the head tones, so called because they feel like they are resonating in the head, in the sinus cavities. (Much more likely than the chest!)

Back to our song. In the original key of A minor, the song hovers on an F. This particular F tends to be where most sopranos have what is called a break, or if we want to get fancy, a passagio, or passage. This break is where the middle range and the head tones divide. Until the singer has learned how to bridge this passage, the voice will often break. Because of where this song lies in the soprano range, it is a very difficult song to sing well. And since it is also a lullaby, it must be sung softly. Unless you want to wake the baby.

This is also one of those songs that many people think existed before the musical, that Gershwin just used an already existing folk song and incorporated it into his opera. That is a huge compliment to the composer. He created something that sounds like it has been around for a long, long time. And it is true that, as with many folk songs, there are just about as many ways to sing Summertime, as there are people who sing it.

I will be playing some versions of Summertime this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check those out. If you are able, I hope that you can join the protests. These are pivotal times we are living in. Be safe.
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Until next time!

Is music racist? That’s a big question. But the big answer is: yes.

Let’s go for a little historical perspective. Ludwig van Beethoven was black. His father was German, while his mother was from Spain, and was referred to as being a “Spanish Moor.” What does that mean? Well, starting in the year 711, and ending roughly 781 years later, in the year 1492, there was an Islamic kingdom in southern Spain. This brought over a lot of people from North Africa – people of color. Now, I realize that Beethoven was born significantly after 1492. He was born in 1770, but even then, there was still a lot of darker people in Spain. The pictures of Ludwig tend to show a pale man, with a wide nose, and wild, fly-away hair. However, descriptions of him while he lived included these phrases: “His face reveals no trace of the German… He was so dark that people dubbed him ‘The Spagnol’ [dark-skinned]” “Coal-black hair… stood up around his head.” “Complexion was brownish, his hair was thick, black, and bristly” And - “Short, stocky, broad shoulders, short neck, round nose, blackish-brown complexion”

This view of Beethoven is disputed. Some biographies of the man completely overlook this, others say that “the rumors that he was black are largely dismissed by historians.” The justification for this is that in pictures he is always shown as being white. However, there exists a pencil sketch that was made of Ludwig that he had copied and gave out to friends and family. In this sketch, he could be a person of color.

I have read that his racial heritage gave him an innate knowledge of African rhythms. That part I have trouble with. To me that seems as racist as the white-washing. Why was it important to hide how dark his skin was? Because he was a great composer. Even during his life, he was acknowledged as a great composer. And how could someone so talented be black?

In the year before Beethoven died, 1826, Stephen Collins Foster was born. Foster would go on to become the father of American music, with such hits as Camptown Races and Old Black Joe. Most of his compositions are classed as parlor songs or minstrel songs. Minstrel songs were to be performed by white people in black-face makeup, using caricatures of what they thought slave dialect sounded like.

Let’s speed forward a few years, to around the turn of the 20th Century. A man generally considered to be one of the great American composers – Irving Berlin, born Israel Beilin. Many of his early compositions such as Alexander’s Ragtime Band, grew from a racist meme. The “joke” was how could a black man have such a highfalutin’ name like Alexander?

This leads us straight to Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson. I was given the collection of sheet music that had belonged to the great-grandfather of one of my students. In the collection is a lot of first editions of Al Jolson hits, all of them with the performer in black-face. I don’t think we’ll be using those.

The opera world has promoted what it calls “color-blind casting” for decades. In the 1990s I saw an amazing production of Don Giovanni that starred an African-American man as Don Juan. But all too often what this really meant was white people playing roles that called for a person of color. I have played Madame Butterfly, an Asian woman. At least I was not put in makeup to make me look Asian. But it was only in 2015, (five years ago!) that the Metropolitan Opera company in New York City stopped putting their Otellos in black makeup.

I have overlooked the vast amount of music that is out there. These are but a few examples, but I think they are indicative of the whole. Music, as all art, reflects the time in which it was composed. Are we getting better? Yes, I think we are. Is our music more reflective of inclusion and respect? Yes. Do we still have a long way to go? Damn straight we do.

Until next time!

It is known that music can stir the emotions. After all, the British poet William Congreve wrote in 1697 that “music hath charms to soothe a savage breast.” I know, people tend to think the quote is about savage beasts, but the actual quote is savage breast.

It’s no surprise that drums and bugles have been going into battle with armies for ages. Not only could orders be sent via the music, but faltering hearts could be encouraged by the sound of the drums and trumpets.
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Is it any surprise then, that songs have long been a part of our protests, too? We Shall Overcome has been a part of protests since 1945 when it was sung at a strike against the American Tobacco Company in Charleston, South Carolina.

But, where did the song come from? That gets a little complicated because it is a folk song. Parts of the melody seem to go back to a song called, No More Auction Block for Me, which also bears a striking resemblance to an even older song called, O Sanctissima.  

However, everyone seems to agree that the words began with the Reverend Charles Albert Tindley. Reverend Tindley was born in 1951, in Berlin, Maryland. A black man, his father was a slave, while his mother was free. Though he was never enslaved, he grew up around slaves.

After the Civil War, Tindley moved to Philadelphia, where he worked, with no pay, as the sexton of the Bainbridge Street Methodist Episcopal Church. He was never able to go to school, but he worked on his own, learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He gained his ordination based on his test scores. Eventually, he became the pastor of the same church where he had worked as sexton, cleaning the floors.

In 1900, Reverend Tindley started publishing hymns that he had written. Among the most popular today are I’ll Understand It Better, By and By, and I’ll Overcome Someday. The opening verse seems particularly a propo today.

The world is one great battlefield,
With forces all arrayed:
If in my heart I do not yield,
I’ll overcome someday.
I’ll overcome someday,
I’ll overcome someday.
If in my heart I do not yield,
I’ll overcome someday.

By 1909 the song, We Will Overcome was known. While the melody is different from that written by the Reverend Tindley, the words are very similar.

But it was in 1945 that the song came to the forefront of protest movements, as We’ll Overcome. Union organizer, Zilphia Horton heard the song. Along with organizing unions, Horton was the music director for the Highlander Folk School, where she liked to end each day’s meetings with We Will Overcome.

It was here that the song came to the attention of Pete Seeger. Seeger was hugely influential in the burgeoning folk movement that was sweeping through American music. Seeger was also part of the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. At some point, Seeger decided to change the word Will to the word Shall. He liked the alliteration of We Will, but also knew that Shall was an easier word to sing. The Ah vowel allows the mouth to open more, making the sound easier to achieve. The slow rhythm of the song allows for “lining”.  “Lining” is the act of chanting out the next line of a song so that the singers, who might not have the words, would know what was coming next. This comes from churches that did not have hymnals, either from poverty, illiteracy, or both. But this lent itself quite well to the protest song concept, where the words could be adapted to each occasion.

About the song, Pete Seeger had this to say: “It’s the genius of simplicity. Any fool can get complicated.”
The song has been translated into many different languages and used in many different settings. But it always is an anthem of hope.

Hope is something that I need right now, and I imagine that you do, too. What songs give you hope? What songs do you find yourself singing in this time of pandemic and riots? We Shall Overcome.
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I’ll be playing this and other songs that give me hope on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check those out.
 
Until next time!

The year is 1938. A family of 12 took a train from Austria to Italy, eventually finding their way to England and then the United States. They settled in Stowe, Vermont, which reminded them of the Austrian Alps they had left behind.

That is a far less dramatic ending than the movie gave them. In The Sound of Music, they hike over the Austrian Alps while the choir sings Climb Every Mountain loudly behind them. On Julie Andrews variety show, the real Maria von Trapp told Julie that when escaping from the Nazis, one does not sing at the top of one’s lungs.

Yes, there was a Maria von Trapp. She was a postulant (kind of a beginning level of nun), when she was called to the von Trapp home to be the nanny, first of one of the children, who was sick, and later all seven of them. She did marry the Baron, who was twice her age, in 1927 (not just before they escaped). Together, they had three more children. They did tour the world as The Trapp Family Singers. And the great-great grandchildren are still performing.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the musical as a whole because I really want to talk about the title song: The Sound of Music. I am sure that some of you are groaning about now. I know, the song has become associated with everything that is cliched. But sometimes cliché isn’t bad.

I contend that every accidental, every change from the rhythm is a clue to the singer, a hint about the character that is singing, and a hint about what the composer intended. And Richard Rodgers gives the singer a lot of clues in this song.

While the movie cut the opening of the song, on stage there is an opening verse. I love the verse. It is pretty much a recitative, meaning that it is almost as if it were spoken. There are some wonderful bits that slip from major to minor and back again, as Maria sings about needing to leave the hills to go back inside.

My day in the hills, has come to an end, I know
A star has come out to tell me it’s time to go.
But deep in the dark green shadows
Are voices that urge me to stay.
So I pause and I wait and I listen
For one more sound,
For one more lovely thing that the hills might say.
 
In the accompaniment for this section, there are high notes that shimmer above the melody, just like stars shining down on the singer.

Then there is a brief pause. A moment of silence, as the singer takes in what the hills are saying to her.

The hills are alive with the sound of music,
With songs they have sung for a thousand years.
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music.
My heart wants to sing every song it hears.
 
This last phrase is sung on an ascending line until it reaches the word song. Why not continue the line going up? Perhaps so that your heart can hear nature’s song. If the line continued upwards, hearing anything else might be difficult.

But, regardless, we have reached a different part of the song.

My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds that rise from the lake to the trees.

There is a strong beat that lies underneath this sentence, that feels just like the strong beat of the bird’s wings.

My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies from a church on a breeze,

The word flies is the high point of this phrase. It can become onomatopoetic. (Onomatopoeia is when the word sound like what it is – usually associated with words like bang. But in this case, I think it can work.) The word can fly by emphasizing the fl sound, and then allowing the y sound to trail off a bit.

To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over stones on its way,

Here the accompaniment takes on the feel of the stream underneath the singer’s words. And the words trip and falls can once again take on onomatopoetic qualities.

To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.

This is my favorite line in the entire song. I have mentioned before that we had a canary when I was growing up. His name was Hansel. Hansel and I would sing duets a lot. He loved this phrase too and could always be counted upon to swell to the occasion. He gave me a perfect example of what this line meant.

And now we come full circle, to a repeat of the beginning of the refrain.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely.
I know I will hear what I’ve heard before.
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I’ll sing once more.
 
Those last two lines bring tears to my eyes every time. They perfectly encapsulate what music, what singing means to me. And to end the song with the acknowledgement that you will sing again. How powerful. What an acclamation.

In the play and in movie, this song ends quietly. Sometimes I end it quietly, and sometimes I feel it needs a big, high ending. That depends on when in a program I am singing it, and where.

As I said earlier, I know that many people hear this song and groan. I hope that looking into it in a little more depth has given you a better appreciation of how beautifully Richard Rodgers music and Oscar Hammerstein’s words meld together into an almost perfect package.
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I’ll be playing this song and a few others from The Sound of Music this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check those out.
 
Until next time!

The year is 1963. The hemline on the miniskirt is just starting to rise upwards. Betty Friedan had just published The Feminine Mystique. A young woman whose hits had been It’s my Party and its sequel Judy’s Turn to Cry, came out with a new song: You Don’t Own Me.

Lesley Gore, born Lesley Sue Goldstein, was 16 and a junior in high school when she recorded her first hit: It’s my Party (and I’ll Cry if I Want to). It was produced by someone who was new to producing by the name of Quincy Jones. Jones would go on to become (among other things) one of the most influential producers and performers of the last century. Lesley would go on to record several more pop girl songs with Quincy as her producer. When she was 17 she brought him You Don’t Own Me.

Musically, this is an interesting song. The verses are all in a minor key. (Remember – a key is just the framework for the song. A minor key usually makes us think of something sad or nostalgic. The Christmas carol What Child Is This is in a minor key.) The chorus of You Don’t Own Me is in a major key. Major keys are often associated with happiness or strength.

This song is such a change from not just Lesley’s other songs but a change from the other songs being sung by women at the time. He’s So Fine, My Boyfriend’s Back, I Will Follow Him (I loved the version of this in Sister Act!) I’m Leavin’ It All Up to You, the list goes on and on. These are songs where the woman is completely subservient to the man. Now, yes, there are a lot of songs about men being hopelessly in love with women, but the men are not treated like objects by the woman.

You Don’t Own Me turns everything on its head. In 1981 I helped a friend escape from her controlling boyfriend. She had to call me in secret while he was out because he had forbidden her from even calling me. One day, she managed to make that call and asked me to come right over. We threw all of her things into a few trash bags and got in my car as quickly as we could. She was terrified that he would come back before we could get her out. This scenario plays out daily all over the country.

According to the National Coalition on Domestic Violence 20 people each minute are abused by an intimate partner. While this is carefully worded to include men and gender fluidity, most of the abused are female.  

Many people look on 1963 as the start of the Second Women’s Movement. (The First was the suffrage movement starting shortly after the Civil War and more or less ending in 1920 with the passing of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote.) Betty Freidan’s book The Feminine Mystique shook the world, beginning a decades-long fight for equal rights, equal pay, and equal protection under the law. Many think that this second wave of feminism ended in the 1980s, to be taken over by the third wave, which was then taken over by the fourth. Good heavens! It’s Feminism! Let’s not worry about which wave we’re in!

At the beginning of this was a little song, sung by a very young woman. You Don’t Own Me.

You don't own me
I'm not just one of your many toys
You don't own me
Don't say I can't go with other boys

And don't tell me what to do
Don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display 'cause

You don't own me
Don't try to change me in any way
You don't own me
Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay

I don't tell you what to say
I don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you

I'm young and I love to be young
I'm free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

And don't tell me what to do
Oh, don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display

I don't tell you what to say
Oh, don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you

I'm young and I love to be young
I'm free and I love to be free

While Lesley had other hits, this was her last one to make it into the Top 10.
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I will be playing different version of You Don’t Own Me this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check those out.
 
Until next time!
 

I love Broadway musicals. Sometimes, like Showboat, they can touch on some serious subjects, like racism. Othertimes, they can be uplifting, like The Sound of Music. And sometimes they can just be ridiculous bits of fun. Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, falls into that third type. There are some issues involving sexism, and infidelity in this musical that deserve a separate blog. But today I don’t feel up to anything that serious. Briefly, Kiss Me, Kate is a musical based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. However, we also have a play within a play. We are looking at a company that is putting on a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. We see them backstage. We see the issues that they have with each other. Our two leads are a divorced couple. She is on the verge of marrying someone else. Of course, by the end, they will be together again, after they have dealt with some mistaken gambling debts and mobsters. (Trust me, this is a comedy!)

But for right now, I give you I Hate Men.

This is sung by Katherine in one of The Taming of the Shrew sections.
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I hate men
I can’t abide them even now and then
Then ever marry one of them, I’d rest a virgin rather,
For husbands are a boring lot and only give you bother
Of course, I’m awfully glad that mother had to marry father,
Still, I hate men.
 
Of all the types of men I’ve met within our democracy
I hate the most the athlete with his manner bold and brassy
He may have hair upon his chest, but sister, so has Lassie
Oh, I hate men!
 
If thou shouldst wed a businessman, be wary, oh be wary
He’ll tell you he’s detained in town on business necessary
The business is the business that he gives his secretary!
Oh, I hate men!
 
I hate men!
Though roosters they, I will not play the hen
If you espouse an older man through girlish optimism
He’ll always stay at home and night and make no criticism
Though you may call it love, the doctors call is rheumatism
Oh, I hate men!
 
Of all I’ve read, alone in bed, from A to Zed about ‘em
Since love is blind, then from the mind, all womankind should rout ‘em
But, ladies, you must answer to, what would we do without ‘em?
Still I hate men!
 
There are other verses, but I think you get the idea. Every company adds some verses or takes some away. Vocally, there is not much to the song, but it is so much fun to perform.
 
Ages and ages ago, I was playing Kate in a community theatre production. I got to storm about the set, yelling, throwing things, hitting high Cs. It was a blast. I Hate Men was a highlight of the evening. One evening, there was a woman in the audience who had just signed her divorce papers that afternoon. She and some friends had gone out for dinner. She had had quite a bit to drink before they came to the show. As I was singing, I Hate Men, she stood up on her seat and shouted: “You tell ‘em, sister!  Men are rats!” before her laughing friends could pull her back down. The joys of live theatre.
 
Have you ever seen Kiss Me, Kate? What about its source – The Taming of the Shrew? Do you have a performance story you’d be willing to share? Let me know in the comments below. I’ll be posting this and some of the other songs from Kiss Me, Kate this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check those out.
 
Until next time!
 

I was going to one of our local hospitals every Wednesday morning to volunteer. (In the time BC – Before Coronavirus) But not volunteering way most people would think of. This particular hospital has a grand piano in one of its lobbies. I was going there to play the piano and sing for four hours once a week. It was so much fun and so rewarding.

When I was growing up, I was a lonely child. My brother was nine years older than I, and there were no other kids in my neighborhood. My best friend lived blocks away. I spent a lot of time alone. The piano was my biggest solace. I would sit at the piano, and play and sing for hours. Mostly Broadway, because that’s what we had the most music for. We had a canary named Hansel. He and I sang some glorious duets.

So, playing and singing for hours is something that I have always done. What was new about singing at the hospital was how softly I had to sing. I have a big voice, and all of my training has been to utilize that and make it even bigger. But, at the hospital, I was background music, not the main attraction. People needed to be able to hear themselves over me. So, I had to develop new ways of changing the dynamics of a song. Oh, and high notes were simply not an option.

I turned to what is known as the Great American Songbook, which in spite of the name, is not a specific songbook. Wikipedia defines the Great American Songbook as: the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century. Is there a list? No, there is not. In fact, there is a lot of debate on which songs are in the Songbook. I think most would include the song Fever.

I remember seeing Peggy Lee sing Fever on a wide variety of variety shows throughout the 1960s. I thought this song, and Peggy Lee, were so very sexy. I sing Fever at the hospital every week. This is a part of the same sense of humor that had me singing My Cup Runneth Over for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union years ago. (People at the hospital seem to appreciate my sense of humor more than the WCTU did.)

I was surprised to find out that Peggy Lee was not the originator of Fever. She was singing a song that had been a hit in 1956 for a singer named Little Willie John. It has saxophones and guitars along with drums and finger snaps. It’s not bad.

You never know how much I love you
Never know how much I care
When you put your arms around me
I get a feelin’ that's so hard to bear

(Chorus)
You give me fever
When you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight
Fever in the mornin'
Fever all through the night

Listen to me, baby
Hear ev'ry word I say
No one could love you the way I do
'Cause they don't know how to love you my way (To Chorus)

Bless my soul, I love you
Take this heart away
Take these arms I'll never use
An' just believe in what my lips have to say (To Chorus)

Sun lights up the daytime
Moon lights up the night
My eyes light up when you call my name
'Cause I know you're gonna treat me right (To Chorus)
 
If you are familiar with Ms Lee’s version, most of these lyrics do not look familiar. That’s because she wrote new ones. She also wrote some lyrics for the 1955 movie Lady and the Tramp. Most notably the song He’s a Tramp, which she sang as Peg the dog. (She also provided the voices of Darling, and the two Siamese cats.)
Here are Peggy Lee’s lyrics:
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Never know how much I love you
Never know how much I care
When you put your arms around me
I get a fever that's so hard to bear
 
(Chorus)
You give me fever when you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight
Fever in the mornin'
Fever all through the night
 
Sun lights up the day-time
Moon lights up the night
I light up when you call my name
'Cause I know you're gonna treat me right (To Chorus)
 
Everybody's got the fever
That is somethin' you all know
Fever isn't such a new thing
Fever started long time ago
 
Romeo loved Juliet
Juliet she felt the same
When he put his arms around her
He said, "Julie baby you're my flame"
Thou givest fever when we kisseth
Fever with thy flaming youth
Fever I'm on fire
Fever yea I burn forsooth
 
Captain Smith and Pocahontas
Had a very mad affair
When her daddy tried to kill him
She said "Daddy oh don't you dare"
"He gives me fever with his kisses"
"Fever when he holds me tight"
"Fever, I'm his missus"
"Daddy won't you treat him right?"
 
Now you've listened to my story
Here's the point that I have made
Chicks were born to give you fever
Be it Fahrenheit or centigrade

We give you fever when we kiss you
Fever if you live and learn
Fever till you sizzle
What a lovely way to burn
What a lovely way to burn
What a lovely way to burn
What a lovely way to burn
 
Quite a few differences here. This became Peggy Lee’s signature song, and these are the lyrics most often done. Peggy also dramatically changed the accompaniment. Gone were the saxophones and guitars. Her version had stand-up bass, drums and finger snaps. Nothing else. This stripped-down instrumentation puts all of the attention on the rhythm and the singer. There are three key changes that happen in the bass first, but the singer must have a very good sense of pitch to pull them off well. (Sadly, not all singers have a good sense of pitch.)
 
I love her Romeo and Juliet verse. Thou giveth fever, strikes me as funny.
 
However.
 
There is the Pocahontas verse. Sigh. I leave that one out. It is a relic of a hopefully bygone era. We do not need to continue that myth. The true story of Pocahontas is a sad one. She was somewhere between 10 and 13 when she met the English colonists in 1608. We only have the story of her saving John Smith from him, bringing it up 8 years after the event allegedly took place. What we do know for certain was that after helping the colonists, she was taken captive by them during the First Anglo-Powhatan War of 1609. During the year that she was a prisoner, she was converted to Christianity and given the name Rebecca. She married an Englishman named John Rolfe and went with him to England. There she was a curiosity as the “civilized savage.” She died in 1617 at roughly the age of 21, leaving behind her husband and a young son. No passionate love story with John Smith. Nothing like the Disney cartoon, either. I just skip that verse.
 
Since Ms Lee’s time, Fever has been done by many other artists, including Madonna, Bette Midler and Beyonce. What do you think? Whose version of the song do you like best? What should I do about that troublesome verse? Let me know what you think in the comments below. I’ll be posting some versions of Fever on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check those out.
 
Until next time!

There is an idea out in the world called La mort de l’auteur. Not to be confused with La mort d’arthur. Both are French. The first translates to the death of the author, while the second is the famous Thomas Mallory work The Death of Arthur. La mort d’arthur is the basis for the wonderful stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We are not talking about that one today. We are going to talk about the death of the author. Sort of. More like La mort du compositeur. Death of the composer.

Like much of the world, I have been living in quarantine for the past few weeks. The first week, my days were brightened by seeing some wonderful operas on metopera.org. I saw Carmen, La Boheme, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, and several others, all favorites of mine. I went to the Met website the second week to see what was on and found Tristan und Isolde, a Wagnerian opera. I have seen Wagernian operas in the past. I’ve even sung a little Wagner. And there are some meltingly beautiful melodies in Wagner’s operas.

But.

When Wagner built Bayreuth (his festival concert hall outside the German city of Bayreuth) he put in two proscenium arches. Now, in most theaters, there is one proscenium arch. It is the square that frames the stage. Wagner wanted two to create an extra layer of effects and distance from the audience, trying for a dreamlike experience. (Of course, with operas running over 4 hours, some audience members’ dreamlike experience might be more sleeplike than others!)

He also started turning out the house lights in the auditorium. He wanted to once again enhance the dream quality. And he wanted the focus to be on his opera, not what jewels the lady in the next box was wearing, or the new gown that other lady had on.

But.

Richard Wagner (Ree-card Vahg-ner) was born in 1813 in Leipzig, Germany, in, oddly enough, the Jewish Quarter of that city. (He was baptized in one of the Lutheran churches in Leipzig.) Six months after greeting their ninth child, Wagner’s father died of typhus. His mother married not long after, and the new family – now named Geyer – moved to Dresden. Until he was 14, Richard thought that Herr Geyer was his birth father. Despite this confusion, they remained close throughout Geyer’s life.

Wagner became one of the Romantic era’s greatest composers. The stereotypical opera singer – a Rubenesque woman wearing a horned helmet with long blond braids falling in front of her metal breastplate – is taken from Wagnerian opera. In truth, most Wagnerian singers do need to be large, in height and tend to be a little plumper. But do not take that for being out of shape. Singing in any opera requires great stamina. Singing in a Wagnerian opera is an Olympic event.

But.

In 1850, Wagner wrote an essay called Judaism in Music. In this, (I have lifted this next bit straight out of Wikipedia. I cannot even type these words myself without feeling nauseous.) “Wagner claims that the work was written to:
explain to ourselves the involuntary repellence possessed for us by the nature and personality of the Jews, so as to vindicate that instinctive dislike which we plainly recognize as stronger and more overpowering than our conscious zeal to rid ourselves thereof.

Wagner holds that Jews are unable to speak European languages properly and that Jewish speech took the character of an "intolerably jumbled blabber", a "creaking, squeaking, buzzing snuffle", incapable of expressing true passion. This, he says, debars them from any possibility of creating song or music. He goes on for 8278 words in this general vein. Far, far too long.

Sadly, in 1850, this was nothing new. But, after his death in 1883, his work was read by someone who took this antisemitism to a whole new level. While Wagner did not live to meet Adolph Hitler, his widow did. And his son and daughter-in-law became great buddies with Hitler. Hitler was a fan.

I grew up in a small town in West Virginia. The closest synagogue was over an hour away. I did not know or understand that antisemitism was still a thing. I thought that WWII had taken care of that. Even living in Germany for 7 years, I didn’t see any antisemitism there.

When we moved to Albuquerque, my husband had some young airmen serving under him. (Bill was in the Air Force for 21 years.) There were three that were particularly difficult. They had gotten in with a bad crowd. A neo-Nazi-KKK crowd. They got caught burning crosses on the lawns of African Americans and Jews. The young men were jailed and booted out of the military.

This brings me back to La mort de l’auteur – the death of the author. In 1967 Roland Barthes printed an essay with this title. He was not advocating for the death of any particular author. He was advocating for a change in how we interpret a novel or a play. Before this, to understand a play it was felt that we needed to understand the playwright’s background, the history of his subjects. An example would be to say that without knowing J.R.R.Tolkien’s history, what his experiences were regarding WWI, his dislike for the Industrial Revolution, we cannot really appreciate The Hobbit. Which simply is not true. Knowing those things can add to your enjoyment of the story, but they are not essential. In this newer way of looking at an art, the idea is that once the author has written their novel, interpretation is left to the reader to take what they will.

Sometimes we need to think before we enjoy an art form. I used to be a huge Johnny Depp fan. I thought that he was one of the great actors of our age. And, for a time, I still think he was. Past tense. Benny and Joon, Ed Wood, Pirates of the Caribbean, (the first one!) and so many others, were works of sheer genius. Then things went downhill. I don’t watch movies that have him in them anymore. There are stores where I do not spend my money because I disagree with their policies – either political or in how they treat their workers.

I had for years believed that Wagner had nothing to do with Hitler’s fascination with his music. And that is true. But I have been doing some reading this past year and found out that his widow and children did have a lot to do with that. And many of their ideas were formed by Richard himself with his writings.

I realized earlier this week that I cannot listen to a Wagnerian opera right now. Perhaps another time I will be able to. Just like I may someday be able to enjoy some of Johnny Depp’s earlier work. (Admittedly, huge difference there – alcoholic, alleged wife-beater as opposed to anti-Semite whose works inspired one of the most murderous tyrants the world has ever seen.)

I guess I am not quite ready for le mort du compositeur. At least not for this compositeur.
​
What do you think? Should we still be enjoying Wagner’s music? There is a lot of problematic music out there if we are going to start looking at the lives of the (mostly) men who were writing it. How should we address this problem? Let me know what you think in the comments below. I’ll be playing some music that wasn’t written by Wagner this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.
 
Until next time!

I was about 4 when The Righteous Brothers had their first big hit with You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. Along with The Beatles, and Elvis, The Righteous Brothers made up an important part of my early musical landscape. Billy Joel would have been 16 at the time of that first hit. It seems obvious to me that The Righteous Brothers were important to his musical upbringing, too. How can I say that with such certainty? Well, in 2003, when The Righteous Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they asked Billy Joel to introduce them. Why would they do that? It had a lot to do with Joel’s song, Until the Night.

Until the Night is from Billy Joel’s 1978 album 52nd Street. Out of his 20-year career and dozens upon dozens of songs, Until the Night is easily my favorite. Joel has been very open about the inspiration for the song: The Righteous Brothers and the “Wall of Sound” created by Phil Spector.

Let’s start with The Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley (baritone) and Bobby Hatfield (tenor) came together after singing with other groups. A mutual friend suggested that they should sing together. According to Hatfield, the name Righteous Brothers came while they were performing before a group of African American Marines. The Marines would shout, “That was righteous, brothers!” and the name stuck.

Their first big hit came in 1964 with You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling under Phil Spector’s production. The Righteous Brothers had an on and off again career, with many hits, including another favorite of mine: Soul and Inspiration. While Bill Medley still performs as The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Hatfield died in 2003, so he is performing with another tenor.

Phil Spector is an interesting . . . character. He was at one time the single most important record producer in the nation. He started the idea that the studio was an important instrument in itself. And he pioneered the Wall of Sound. As an example: he would have a piano, an electric piano, and a harpsichord all playing the same part. Could you, listening to it, pick out the individual instruments? No. But the texture of the finished sound would be fuller than the solo instruments. Spector called it a Wagnerian approach to producing. (After Richard Wagner, on opera composer from the late 1800s, well-known for huge, bombastic productions – and for a lot more, but that’s another blog!)

By 1981, Spector had faded out of the music business and had become something of a recluse. However, he blasted forward into public notice in 2003, when an actress named Lana Clarkson was found dead of a gunshot wound in his home. Following a trial in 2008, Spector was found guilty of murder and is currently serving his sentence in California. He will be eligible for parole in 2025.

Well, that brought the mood down quite a bit, didn’t it?

Let’s get back to Until the Night.

I never ask you where you go
After I leave you in the morning
We go our different ways to separate situations
It’s not that easy anymore
 
Today I do what must be done
I give my time to total strangers
But now it feels as though the day goes on forever
More than it ever did before
 
(Chorus)
Until the night, until the night
I just might make it
Until the night, until the night
When I see you again
 
Now you’re afraid that we have changed
And I’m afraid we’re getting older
So many broken hearts, so many lonely faces
So many lovers come and gone
 
I’ll have my fears like every man
You’ll have your tears like every woman
Today we’ll be unsure, is this what we believe in
And wonder how can we go on  (to Chorus)
 
When the sun goes down
And the day is over
And the last of the light has gone
As they pour into the street
I will be getting closer
 As the cars turn their headlights on
 As they’re closing it down
I’m gonna open it up
And while they’re going to sleep
We’ll just be starting to touch
I’m just beginning to feel
I’m just beginning to give
I’m just beginning to feel
I’m just beginning to live
Before I leave you again
Before the light of dawn
Before this evening can end
I have been waiting so long  (to Chorus)
 
This is a song about a couple that have been together for a few years. They are still very much in love. During the day, they each go to their own, outside lives. But, at night, they are together again. It is no surprise that Bill Medley covered this song in his 1981 album Sweet Thunder. It really does have the feel of the early Righteous Brothers hits like Soul and Inspiration or You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling combined with the Spector Wall of Sound.
 
What is your favorite Billy Joel song? Or how about The Righteous Brothers? Let me know in the comments below. I’ll be playing some of my favorites this week on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.
 
Until next time!

I remember when rock was young
Me and Suzie had so much fun
Holding hands and skimming stones
Had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own
 
But the biggest kick I ever got
Was doing a thing called the Crocodile Rock
While the other kids were Rocking Round the Clock
We were hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock
 
(Chorus)
Well Crocodile Rocking is still something shocking
When your feet just can’t keep still
I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will
Oh, Lawdy mama, those Friday nights
When Suzie wore her dresses tight
And the Crocodile Rocking was out of sight.
 
But the years went by and the rock just died
Suzie went and left me for some foreign guy
Long nights crying by the record machine
Dreaming of my Chevy and my old blue jeans
 
But they’ll never kill the thrills we got
Burning up to the Crocodile Rock
Learning fast as the weeks went past
We really thought the Crocodile Rock would last   (to Chorus)
 
That is Elton John’s Crocodile Rock from 1972. Some of the other songs that I’ve written about have one song that was the inspiration: Here, There and Everywhere was inspired by God Only Knows, Killing Me Softly by Empty Chairs. Crocodile Rock was inspired by most of the music from Elton John’s youth. Yup, pretty much all of it. Elton was born in 1947, and Bernie Taupin, his lyricist, was born in 1950. The songs that have direct ties to Crocodile Rock are primarily from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. Some of them are pretty obvious. Bill Haley and His Comets’ Rock Around the Clock is even mentioned in the lyrics.

Some get a little less blatant. There is an entire genre of music from the 1950s that had the falsetto la-la-las. Del Shannon’s Cry Myself to Sleep from 1962 has a lot in common with Crocodile Rock. The structure of the verse is very similar, and the high-pitched las are just as annoying. (Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE Crocodile Rock. But the falsetto las are very, very annoying.)

Bill Haley and His Comets has another reference in this song. Not only is his Rock Around the Clock sung about, but the title is probably a riff on his See You Later, Alligator.

I was surprised to find that there had been a plagiarism lawsuit brought against Elton and Bernie. In 1974, suit was brought by Buddy Kaye for a song he’d written called Speedy Gonzales. Speedy was recorded by Pat Boone in 1961. (Do not bother listening. That is 2 ½ minutes that I’ll never get back.) The song is notable for the fact that it used the voice of Mel Blanc, the voice of Speedy in cartoons dating back to his first appearance in Cat-Tails for Two back in 1953. The wording is a little odd: Elton and Bernie “illegally incorporated chords from Speedy Gonzales which produced a falsetto tone into the Crocodile song.” I’m not entirely sure what that means. But they settled out of court.

Crocodile Rock was Elton John’s first number one hit in the US. He has called it “disposable pop.” Bernie Taupin has said that he would rather be remembered for things like Candle in the Wind or Empty Garden. I even read that DJs came to hate this song. It was just too catchy. And it still is.
​
My favorite version is the one from Elton’s appearance on The Muppet Show, singing in a swamp with muppet Crocodiles singing the annoying la’s. I could only find one version of the song that was not by Elton John, and that was from the soundtrack to Gnomeo and Juliet. So, this week I will be playing some other Elton John songs on my Minnich Music FaceBook page this week, so be sure to check them out.
 
Until next time!