Hello Walls ! hello, hello

 "Hello Walls, how'd things go for you today? " and the walls reply! "woooo woooo hello, hello"   A Country and Western hit from 1961 which deserves to be up there with the great treasures of surrealist dissociation.  "I'll bet you dread to have to spend another lonely night with me, but lonely walls, I'll keep you company"  What makes it so bizarre is that the walls sing back with a kind of manic cheerfulness   Projecting feelings onto inanimate objects is nothing new. There's even a name for it: "pathetic faillacy". Where would the poetry of the Romantic era be without it?

"Hello Window. Well, I see that you're still here, Aren't you lonely since our darling disappeared? Well, look here, is that a teardop in  the corner of your pane? Now don't you try to tell me it's just rain!"

 Listen closely to the way Faron Young (1932-1995)  shapes his words "darlinnn" "urrr teardrop" and that nasal "pane".  Strange grimaces, nasal whines, contorted tics, but that's exactly what lifts this song and makes it so fascinating.

 "Hello ceiling !  I'm gonna stare at you awhile.... we must all stick together or else i'll lose my mind" (Notice the way he sings the word "to ge -THURRR ", his voice like the twang of a slide guitar)

Many singers have covered it in the last 50 years, with more polish, but Faron Young gives the song a pungent sting that "proper" singing cannot breach. I think it's his sincerity and awkwardness - definitely not a "trained voice" but moving.  In real life, Young was a troubled man, like so  many Country and Western singers seem to have been. Even his physical mannerisms are gauche. Don't those straitlaced folks in the background (singing hello, hello)  realize how bizarre the song really is ?  Look at their stiff body language and their creepy hands.  But that's why I love this song, and this clip, so much. it has no front.

Remembering Cléoma Breaux

Remembering Cléoma Breaux Falcon (1905-41), and the music tradition she stood for, and the era in which she lived.  Cléoma was a tiny little woman, barely five feet tall but what a personality! The Breaux family were the first Cajun musicians to be recorded, as soon as technology made it possible. The whole family was talented but Cléoma stood out, with her bright, clear voice and her assertive delivery. She toured in Cajun country and also appeared as far as California. Her career was cut short when she was run over by a  car: for the last years of her life she was in excruciating pain, though she continued to sing and play when she could. In the photo, she's seen with her husband Joe Falcon, also a musician, and their adopted daughter, who used to dance at their gigs.  Here's the classic Hip et taiau, (aka Hippy Tai o) still performed in various new forms, The video is a compilation, not of the lady herself. Please see my other posts on Women feisty by following the label below

YOU DON'T OWN ME

"YOU DON'T OWN ME - I'm not just one of your little toys. You don't own me, don't try to change me in any way..... I don't tell you what to say, I don't tell you what to do....So please, let me be myself... to live my life the way that I want, to say and do whatever I please" ,  Lesley Gore died this week, aged only 68.  She shot to overnight fame with "It's my Party", a doleful wail about a spoilt brat rasiing hell at her own birthday party. But she was mad because boyfriend had dumped her. In 1963, Nice Girls were supposed to shut up and take abuse, maintaining a pleasant, if plastic persona. If "It's my Party" was unsettling, "You Don't Own Me" was revolutionary stuff. At the time, we didn't quite know how to take such rebellion, expressed so bluntly. Notice how the song tails off, without resolution. It's only the beginning of the story. It's taken some of us 50 years to get the message. Hail to you Lesley Gore! In 1965 women in Iran, for example, and even in Afghanistan, listened to this song and dreamed of a better future. Even in the so called progressive West, women are abused and put down, trapped in a self destructive spiral. It's not a better world. Never forget !

Hello Walls !

What I listen to when I don't listen to Schubert

Another Creepy Edward

Coming up soon, posts on ENO Fidelio, Wigmore Hall Schumann (Persson/Boesch) and more on ENO Fledermaus. Watch this space, and come back! But first another version of "Edward" a traditional song of obscure origins that crops up if different times and folk traditions. Ever it was so. Greek myth is retold in myriad forms. Why the modern obsession with preserving things in only one form?  A good basic idea grows and takes on new life.

A while back I wrote about Carl Loewe's Creepy Edward, a Lieder version  to a poem by Gottfried Herder adapting the legend in German Romantic terms. Then, the same story crops up as "Knoxville Girl" in country music (and later in rock) . So here's a version by Richard Dyer-Bennet who would have been 100 years old today. Dyer-Bennet was English but lived in the US (but not in Knoxville) and sang folk ballads. His "Edward" supposedly resembles the original folk song, though he sings it in such a genteel way. Personally I have a weakness for the psychotic desperado within the twanging slide guitar.

 

George Jones Country before Country was Cool

George Jones the Country singer is dead aged 81. The shock is that he lived that long. Why is it that Country stars, raised in God-fearing homes, trash their lives fuelled by alcohol?  George Jones's voice was bizarre. His legendary "twang" was the apotheosis of wild vibrato, drenching every syllable with contorted sentiment. It matched the whining wail of the slide guitar : a caricature of distortion. And yet it worked. The songs he sang weren't great classics yet the way he sang was soaked with feeling. Pickled in alcohol, perhaps. Today, everyone's singing his greatest hit with the line "He stopped loving her today/ They placed a wreath upon his door/ And soon they'll carry him away/He stopped loving her today". 

Below I've put the song that comes closest to poetry  and demonstrates "the voice" and its charms. Maybe George Jones appeals because he's so painfully sincere. Indeed, it's all the more chilling because he uses a nonchalant neutrality to sing about horrible images like police brutality. Please also read my post on Kitty Wells, The Fricka of Country, on Cajun music, the Louvin Brothers and much else

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Red Sails in the Sunset

Patti Page, "The Singing Rage", has died aged 85. But she seemed to, belong to a much earlier era, before Rock n Roll, Pop etc, yet after the Big Bands of the 1930's.  Here is a link to Patti Page How much is that Doggie in the Window? which my family used to sing together when people did stuff like that for entertainment instead of TV.

So you can understand why I associate Patti Page with Red Sails in the Sunset which had earlier been  a big hit for Bing Crosby and Fats Domino. We would sing that song when we were coming back from fishing trips in the islands, when the sun was setting, turning the sails on Chinese fishing junks red with reflected light. Even now i can picture in my mind, one vessel sailing uncommonly fast, fast enough that my father pointed it out in surprise. Must have caught a freak gust. I was so young then that I thought Red Sails in the Sunset was written specially for us. The photo shows a junk in 1895 taken by William Henry Jackson. Obviously not the same vintage as me, but when I was a kid there were still thousands of authentic working junks, fishing as they had done for centuries.

Below a clip of Patti Page singing Red Sails in the Sunset. Gorgeously vintage staging - look at the dress. Nowadays her vocal technique or lack thereof drives me nuts, but what happy memories!  And I couldn't resist How Much is That Doggie in the Window?
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Mario del Monaco sings Cowboy

Who says crossover is new? "Yippee yi-yay Yippeee yay-oooo !" Mario del Monaco (1915-1980), sings Ghost Riders in the sky with Italianate operatic flourish! "Awe inspiring and hilarious in equal measure", says the friend who sent it to me. You bet. Enjoy the flatulent brass underscoring del Monaco's heroic approach.

The Fricka of Country Music - It wasn't God who made Honky Tonk Angels

Kitty Wells is dead, aged 92. "Feminist Country Godmother to Britney Spears" runs an artiile in the Atlantic but that doesn't tell half the story, and the Britney Spears bit is demeaning.  Another article here in the Telegraph. 

More than ten years before Betty Friedan and women's Lib, Kitty Wells was a pioneer when there weren't many roles for women in Country music, or indeed the whole social milieu of Country music, dominated as it was by Bible Belt patriarchy, which even men didn't know how to question. Alcoholism was the angst of the misfit in the Country scene. Kitty wasn't the first female Country or Cajun singer, but she was different from nice girls like the Carter family who knew their place. Kitty was happily married for 74 years, almost certainly not leftist. You bet she never burned her bra or flag. But she stood up to things. "Will your lawyer talk to God and plead your case on high?" "Making believe, you're somebody's love, never mine".. "Have I lost you to a woman half my age?" Without Kitty Wells, perhaps no Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette or Dolly Parton. And thousands of nice girls in white cardigans and aprons started to think, why should we take things lying down?  Real change happens when the non-urban, non-intellectual proletariat are roused. Kitty Wells, with her Southern belle gentility, deserves a place in the Valhalla of modern womanhood.

 Kitty became famous almost by accident, after recording a riposte to Hank Thompson's The Wild Side of Life which blamed womern and alcohol for leading him astray. No, sang Kitty, using the same tune. "It wasn't God who made Honky Tonk Angels,.... Many a time married men think they're still single, that has caused many a good girl to go wrong. It's a shame that all the blame is on us woman, ....from the start most every heart that's ever broken was because there always was a man to blame".  It's overstatement of course, but understandable given the heirachical situation at the time. Women (and men) aren't born bad, they're made bad. So even if Kitty Wells, the Fricka of Country Music,  upholds marriage and good behaviour, she's not judging those who fall. 

Ultimately, feminism liberates men as well as women because it shows that there are other ways to be. Again and again, in Country music people are destroyed by this either/or dilemma between perfection and dissolution. Britney Spears went off the rails because she couldn't cope. Many times I hoped she'd learn not to blame herself but the crazy world around her. Singing, she doesn't need to learn from Kitty Wells, but how to stand up for herself.

Lots on this site about Country and Cajun music, feminsism, fesity women and Lieder. Please read here how the Lieder and Country Music traditions ironically connect.

Pickled by Seven Foot Dilly

Last night I was at I Fagiolini's 25th anniversary party at Spitalfields Winter Music Festival. A capella close harmony - renaissance and 21st century. The fun thing is the way singers can adapt any music and any style, from Striggio and Monteverdi to tunes by Lennon and McCartney. So maybe Manhattan Transfer and barbershop singing spring from a long tradition? When people get together and sing, they can be creative. What are the origins of hillbilly close harmony? People still clog dance in Appalachia, like their ancestors might have in Ireland or Scotland. Did hillbilly song stem from singing in church? Some of the songs clearly have folk origins. A while back I wrote about Knoxville Girl, whose antecdents go so far back that the idea has morphed into many forms, from Carl Loewe's Edward! Edward! (based on quasi folksy Romantic poetry) to modern punk ballad. Please click on this link for more - great juxtaposition of hillbilly harmony and formal Lieder technique. 

Seven Foot Dilly was John Dilleshaw who stood six foot seven. He had a band called the Dill Pickles, whose banjo player was known as "Shorty" for reasons apparent in the photo above. As you can see, they were a string quartet!  The song below is interesting because it's just Seven Foot and AA Gray singing a folk tune. Seven Foot strums guitar, AA strums fiddle. Is it Black music, or European folk (religious) music? Seven Foot learned to play from a black musician. Maybe there was a lot more black/white mixing? Fascinating subject for someone interested in cross culture, cross genre.

Great Atomic Power - existential angst in Country music

Listen to the words of this amazing song from the "age of anxiety" in the Cold War, when both sides were paranoid about imminent attack, either from each other or by alien forces, like Men from Mars. This song is a good example of how popular culture absorbed the Zeitgeist. Being devout Southern Baptists, the Louvin Brothers thought in the context of Armageddon, so their answer to the predicament could come straight from a pulpit,  enhanced by hillbilly harmony and the twang of guitars. Interesting how they equate Christianity with an "army". Not all so far from the Knights of the Grail in Wagner's Parsifal. Maybe it's a universal response to threat, but Jesus didn't teach violence. Interesting too, how singers like Ira Louvin thought in strict religious terms but lived wildly irreligious lives. Ira died a wreck in 1965. Charlie, the less demon driven brother, (the babyface) died aged 83 last month, singing tributes to Ira to the end. That's genuine love.
 
"Do you fear Man's Great Invention that they call Atomic Power, Are we all in great confusion, do we know the time or hour? When a terrible explosion may rain down upon our land, leaving horrible destruction, blotting out the Works of Man?

"Are you ready, to meet that Great Atomic Power, will you rise and meet your Saviour in the air ? Will you shuddeer, will you cry, when the fire rains down from high, are you ready for that Great Atomic Power?

"There is one way to escape it, be prepared to meet The Lord, put your faith and heart in Jesus,. he will be your shield and sword. He will stand beside and you'll never feel the test, for your soul will fly to safety and eternal peace and rest.

"There's an army that can conquer all the regiments of man, ....when the Mushroom of Destruction falls in all its might, God will surely save his children from that awful, awful fate."

Carl Loewe's creepy Edward

Carl Loewe (1796-1869) was an exact contemporary of Schubert, and a friend of Felix Mendelssohn, whose music he conducted. He lived long enough to know Schumann and Brahms. He's definitely an important part of the jigsaw that is 19th century Lieder. Loewe was an independent individualist who found his own distinctive voice. A few years ago, Cpo the budget label recorded Loewe's complete songs - over 400, on about 20 discs. The series is uneven but the good ones are extremely good - Edith Mathis, Christoph Prégardien, and Kurt Moll for example. There are also excellent collections with Hermann Prey and Thomas Quasthoff.  Loewe's operas are also great fun. A very young Jonas Kaufmann (1998, Munich) appears in Loewe's Die Drei Wünsche, to which he's ideally suited. 

Here's Loewe's Edward, Edward. Wilhelm Strienz with Michael Raucheisen, from German radio in the 1930'/40's .Being Loewe's op1 no 1, it's not as sophisticated as some of his greater pieces like Herr Oluf (Loewe's answer to Schubert's Erlkoenig)  but it's highly dramatic - a great encore piece. For the full text go to Emily Ezust's Lieder.net HERE.

The poem is Gottfried Herder. It's based on Scottish legend. Early Romantics were fascinated by wild, "primitive" cultures that offered an alternative to urban "civilized" society. Edward walks in on his mother. He's saturated with blood. "It's my hawk".  No, says Mum.  "It's my steed", blurts Edward. But the truth comes out. He's slaughtered his father. No explanation, but he's going on the run and will never return, leaving behind castle, wife and kids.

Edward is one of the first desperados in 19th century literature and song. The concept continues to fascinate. Below, a variation on the Edward theme. It's a traditional ballad here given C&W  treatment in 1952. Listen to the words - seriously psychotic. Even more surreal is the bland  nonchalance with which the band dedicates the song to the people of Knoxville, Tennessee, as if they think it's cute to be associated with sicko killers. At least Edward had an inkling of what he'd done, as Loewe's impassioned coda reminds us.

Why I love Merle Haggard

Why would a Lieder-loving Leftist like me love Merle Haggard, with his country twang, slide guitars and proto-fascist politics? Because in his own way, Merle Haggard's got integrity. He's an authentic Okie. His parents were refugees from the Dust Bowl in Depression Oklahoma. Merle was a roughneck, alcoholic and ex con but he's not dumbass. He turned his life round and became a creative artist who thinks about issues. "I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, the place where even squares can have a ball".

His politics were ultra right and anti intellectual. Macro, such things are destructive but for him they're an articulation of someone who's lived as he has. Bizarrely, we agree on crippled soldiers (see Hanns  Eisler's Ballade von der Krüppelgarde): he blames flag burners and I blame the crooks who send men to war in the first place. (Though to his credit he opposed the invasion of Iraq.).I'll defend his right to his views if he'll respect mine. Probably not, but I think the guy's sincere. As working class hero, he's kin to Bruce Springsteen, though their politics aren't the same.

And the music. He's not as good as my favourites like Jimmy Rogers, Roy Acuff, the Carters and the Louvin Brothers and others from much more innocent times past but he's sure more authentic than the sort of plasticized trash that came after. I discovered him during the Vietnam war and he led me to them. Here is a link to a wonderful version of Today I started loving you again, which he wrote for Bonnie Owens, his second wife. A million miles from Schubert and Wolf, and the voice is nowhere near bel canto, but the tenderness is genuine. And listen to the alienation  in the clip below:

Big Butter Jesus is toast

SPREAD the word, Big Butter Jesus is toast! Everywhere in the news you'll hear about how lightning struck the 60 foot Jesus looming over a highway in Ohio. Here's the song that made it famous. Thank God that there are folks with a sense of humour. Maybe He has taste, too. Grotesques like this appear all over the world, a kind of primitive folk art, funded by big bucks. In Queensland, giant pineapples, in Baghdad, Saddam's gigantic arch of swords, in England the angel over the M1 motorway that looks like Nazi insignia. The song's a scream. "Garth Brooks outta string cheese, Virgins outta olives" Acid social comment. There's hope in this world when people can laugh.