Tag Archives: Melanie

Parsons Playlists: Quirky Macca

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Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library Associate Melanie and features some Paul McCartney tracks.

This playlist was inspired by Paul McCartney (sometimes known to British fans as “Macca”) and the delightful quirky streak evident throughout his music career. His odder tracks also highlight the startling versatility of his voice and his interest in experimental recording techniques.

Let’s start with 2 versions of the same song. “Coming Up” was the opening track on the 1980 album McCartney II. The song makes use of synthesizers and sped-up vocals using a vari-speed tape machine.

The video for this version actually premiered on Saturday Night Live on May 17, 1980 and features multiple McCartneys and a couple of Linda McCartneys as a (fictional) band called the Plastic Macs.

This version peaked at number 2 on the UK singles chart, while in the U.S. and Canada a live version of the song recorded in Glasgow in 1979 was released and became the hit version peaking at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

McCartney’s old bandmate John Lennon really liked the album version of the song, saying “I thought that ‘Coming Up’ was great, … And I like the freak version that he made in his barn better than that live Glasgow one.” So herewith, a playlist highlighting Macca’s “freaky side”. I might have gotten a bit carried away with this list, but there’s so much fun stuff out there, I couldn’t resist! – MAA

“Coming Up” (McCartney II version, released 1980)

“Coming Up” (Live in Glasgow, December 17, 1979)

“Pretty Little Head” (Dreamy and atmospheric. From Press To Play, released 1986)

“Monkberry Moon Delight” (A scream-y stomper with some of the oddest lyrics you’ll come across. From Ram, released 1971)

“Check My Machine” (Quite literally created as an exercise to check his home recording machine. From McCartney II, released 1980)

“Nod Your Head” (From Memory Almost Full, released 2007)

“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” (Short, simple and … lusty. From The Beatles – aka The White Album, released 1968)

“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” (Playful and inventive. From Ram, released 1971)

“We All Stand Together” (Billed as Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus – appears in the 1984 animated cartoon “Rupert & the Frog Song”. The song was a top 10 hit in the UK.)

“Free Now” (A little musique concrète in collaboration with Youth and Super Furry Animals. From Liverpool Sound Collage, released 2000)

“Où est le Soleil?” (A synth-y electronic vibe en français. The lyrics translate as “Where is the sun? In the head. Work.” From Flowers in the Dirt, released 1989)

“Smile Away” (From Ram, released 1971)

“Wild Honey Pie” (A snippet in the key of F# major (that’s 6 sharps!). From The Beatles’ White Album, released in 1968)

“Kreen-Akrore” (A lo-fi instrumental jam session. From McCartney, released 1970)

“Mary Had A Little Lamb” (Not a rocker at all, it’s a cute little children’s song based on the nursery rhyme. A non-album single, released in 1972.)

“Hi, Hi, Hi” (Quite a fun little rocker. Banned by the BBC for sexually suggestive lyrics and drug references. A staple of Wings live shows in the 1970s. Non-album single, released 1972)

“Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” (A track by The Fireman – a collaboration between McCartney and Youth. From Electric Arguments, released in 2008)

“Magneto and Titanium Man” (A comic book inspired song featuring Marvel characters. Endorsed by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. From the Wings album Venus & Mars released in 1975.)

“Temporary Secretary” (Another 1980 track from McCartney II. Described in Rolling Stone as an “oddly catchy electro-pop nugget, about a slightly creepy-sounding guy looking to hire a temp.” Can’t argue with that assessment, really.)

“Step Inside Love/Los Paranoias” (This track from the Beatles Anthology 3 begins as a demo of a song for Cilla Black and morphs into an amusing jam session. Recorded in 1968. Released in 1996.)

“Oo You” (From McCartney, released 1970)

“Old Siam Sir” (From the seventh and final Wings studio album Back to the Egg, released in 1979)

“Flaming Pie” (A track from the 1997 album also entitled Flaming Pie.)

“You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)” (A rather nutty music hall comedy number recorded between 1967 and 1969 and released as the B-Side to “Let It Be” in 1970. Listen for McCartney’s sleazy lounge singer character!)

Here is the whole playlist on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU94rco57Zey6hqfXCEL9s9O3V6ZfkYRk

And here’s a (slightly longer) version of the playlist on Spotify:

Parsons Playlists: Green Songs

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Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist features a selection of music featuring songs that mention the color green in their titles curated by our Music Library Associate, Melanie.

It’s almost time for St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) and the first day of Spring (March 20th), so I have had the color green on the brain of late. Herewith, a collection of songs that mention the color green in their titles. Enjoy!

Color_icon_green

The Chieftains – “The Green Fields of America”

Booker T and the MGs – “Green Onions”

Kermit the Frog – “Bein’ Green” (aka “It’s Not Easy Being Green”)

The Lemon Pipers – “Green Tambourine”

Vince Guaraldi Trio – “Greensleeves”

Panic! at the Disco – “That Green Gentleman”

Green Day – “Green Day”

Kate Rusby – “Village Green Preservation Society”
(the original version by the Kinks is great as well!)

Simon & Garfunkel – “Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”

Lorde – “Green Light”

Beyoncé – “Green Light”

George Baker Selection – “Little Green Bag”

Babyshambles – “Love You But You’re Green”

R.E.M. – “Green Grow The Rushes”

Here is a link to the whole playlist on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU94rco57ZexqVXjCyoLdglo0D2Ik7ak7

And here is a version on Spotify:

Music of Chile

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At the Music Library, we have celebrated this year’s Chile-themed International Education Week with an exhibit about the country’s music.

Chile - International Ed Week flyer

Our exhibit highlights items (both physical and streaming) from UR’s collection as well as information about traditional Chilean instruments and dance. It also includes thumbnail biographical info on several Chilean musicians.

Here’s a little info on the music with some links to items in the library’s collection and a few video clips for good measure!

***

The traditional music of Chile is a rich mixture of Spanish and Pre-Columbian influences.

Some of the traditional instruments commonly used in Chile include Andean instruments such as

Charango

* The charango – a small stringed instrument of the lute family. It was traditionally made from armadillo shell, but is more commonly made of wood today. It has 10 strings.

and

Zampoña - Chilean pan pipes

* The zampoña – these are Chilean panpipes.

You can hear some examples of these instruments in action on songs like “Nieve, Viento Y Sol (Snow, Wind and Sun)” which is available to stream at this link: https://richmond.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01URICH_INST/191gg5k/alma9917693733606241

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The Cueca is considered to be the “most traditional music and dance of Chile” and is officially the country’s national dance. While cueca’s origins are not entirely certain, indigenous, African and Spanish influences are evident.

Cueca

It is a partner dance which is indented imitate the courtship of a rooster and hen. Men usually wear a traditional Chilean cowboy costume while women traditionally don a flowered dresses with an apron.

Here is a video of a cueca performance:

And here is a link to a reference article about the dance.

***

Nueva Canción Chilena

In the 1960s and 1970s, Chilean songwriters like Victor Jara and Violeta Parra used the tonada as a foundation of the “Nueva Canción,” explicitly political music that blended Chilean folk music with progressive politics, similar to the way Bob Dylan and Joan Baez led a political folk revival around the same time in the U.S.

The foundations of nueva canción were laid by Violeta Parra (1917-1967) who was a popular folk singer-songwriter and musicologist who researched and recovered the poetry and songs of rural Chile.

Photograph of Violeta Parra

The library owns several resources with information about her and also a 2013 biopic about her called Violeta se fu a los cielos (Violeta Went to Heaven) that’s worth a look. Here’s the trailer for the film:

Víctor Jara (1932-1973) was a legendary Chilean folk singer and political activist who also pioneered nueva canción. His activism led to his murder by the Pinochet dictatorship in 1973.

Photograph of Victor Jara

Jara’s life and work continue to be celebrated by Latin American artists as well as globally known bands like U2 and The Clash. The 2018 documentary film The Resurrection of Víctor Jara is a great introduction to his life and legacy and is available to UR students, faculty and staff as a streaming video resource.
Here’s a trailer for the documentary:

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Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire, especially the works of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms.

Photograph of Claudio Arrau

He is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

Here are a couple of library resources about his life and work:

* Claudio Arrau, the Emperor (DVD)

* Piano Lessons with Claudio Arrau: A Guide to His Philosophy and Techniques (Book)

***

Of course, this is only a small sampling of music from Chile, but hopefully it will intrigue you and make you want to learn more!

Map of Chile and surrounding countries

Parsons Playlists: Wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!: Fun with Non-Lexical Vocables

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Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today we’re featuring a collection called “Wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!: Non-Lexical Vocables” curated by Music Library associate Melanie Armstrong.

This playlist began as a discussion with a friend online a couple months ago. I had shared a song that I’d had stuck in my head and my friend said that it was their least favorite song by the group because (and I quote) “SHA LA LA is a terrible lyric 🙂”. The discussion that followed was all in good fun, but led me to want to research songs that have nonsense syllables in them just to prove that “sha la la” is NOT (necessarily) a terrible lyric.

scat singing notation

Vocals like “sha la la” in songs are called non-lexical vocables. Basically, they are nonsense syllables which may or may not be mixed together with meaningful text and they appear in all manner of different musics. This, of course, led to me being extra geeky and having a lot of fun creating a playlist highlighting a variety of different songs that use nonsense syllables in this way. In point of fact, it goes all the way back to at least the middle ages with songs using things like “fa la la” in them – but I decided to stick to more modern examples for playlist purposes. Which means this playlist starts with some scat singing (from circa the 1920s-1940s) and goes on from there.

Your mileage may vary in terms of your tolerance of the non-lexical vocable, but I maintain that sometimes one doesn’t need an actual word to create musical meaning and that non-lexical vocables can be super fun!

Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five – “Heebie Jeebies”

Cab Calloway – “The Scat Song”

Ella Fitzgerald – “Blue Skies”

The Crew Cuts – “Sh-Boom”

Little Richard – “Tutti Frutti”

The Muppets – “Mah Na Mah Na”

The Jackson 5 – “ABC”

Suzanne Vega with DNA – “Tom’s Diner”

Primitive Radio Gods – “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand”

Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps – “Be Bop A Lula”

Louis Prima & Phil Harris – “I Wanna Be Like You”

The Del-Vikings – “Come Go With Me”

Ben Folds Five – “Magic” (this is the song that triggered the whole list!)

Earth, Wind & Fire – “September”

Spice Girls – “Wannabe”

Tenacious D – “Classico”

Lady Gaga – “Bad Romance”

Bobby McFerrin & Chick Corea – “Song for Amadeus (Improvisation on Mozart’s Sonata No. 2 in F Major)”

The Beatles – “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”

Mungo Jerry – “In The Summertime”

The Tokens – “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”

Wilson Pickett – “Land of 1000 Dances”

The Chips – “Rubber Biscuit”

Ben Folds – “Army” (Live at Roseland Ballroom New York, NY – June 2002)

The Beatles – “Hey Jude”

Here is a link to a YouTube playlist version: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU94rco57ZeyCsgxI0Edsp3YEZWPigCRX

And here is the playlist on Spotify:

Music of India: Ravi Shankar

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Ravi Shankar
(April 7, 1920 – December 11, 2012)

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar was a master of the sitar and composer and one of the best known Indian musicians in the world. His rich musical career spanned nine decades and he spent much of his career bridging the gap between the musical cultures of West and East.

Born in 1920 to a Bengali Brahmin family, Shankar was the youngest of seven brothers. At the age of 13, he joined his brother Uday Shankar‘s Compaigne de Danse et Musique Hindou (Company of Hindu Dance and Music) as a dancer and spent several years touring India and Europe with his brother’s group. The extensive touring allowed Ravi to learn about Western classical music and jazz while he travelled.

In 1938, Shankar gave up dancing to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After completing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer – working several genres including for Indian films like The Apu Trilogy and serving as musical director of All India Radio.
During this period, Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra, and composed for it; in his compositions he combined Western and classical Indian instrumentation.

Ravi Shankar's sitar

Sitar of Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920–2012). Commissioned by Shankar from the instrument maker Nodu Mullick in Calcutta. Made in 1961. (Gift to the British Museum from Shankar’s family )

Concurrently, Shankar’s international fame was on the rise. In 1954, he performed in the Soviet Union. In 1956, he played his debut solo concerts in Western Europe and the U.S. Within two decades, he was probably the most famous Indian musician in the world.

Shankar was not one-dimensional and his great genius was his openness to other musical traditions. His liberal musical outlook brought him into musical collaborations with a diverse set of musicians. He was so confidently grounded in his own tradition, that he felt unthreatened and completely secure in presenting it to the world as well as by collaborating with others. This is most remembered in his teaching of, and collaboration with the Beatles, above all George Harrison (who became Shankar’s student).

Ravi Shankar and George Harrison

Guitarist George Harrison poses for a portrait with Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar in circa 1975. Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Ravi Shankar also worked with classical musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, Zubin Mehta and Philip Glass. He composed music for several films, including Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which he received an Academy Award nomination and also composed three concertos and a symphony for sitar and Western orchestra as well as pieces pairing the sitar with the Western flute and the Japanese koto.

Shankar received many honors and awards during his lifetime including the Bharat Ratna (India’s highest civilian honor) in 1999, an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for “services to music” in 2001, the Fukuoka Prize and five Grammy awards.

Ravi Shankar

Here is a sampling of library resources featuring Shankar from our collection:

– My Music, My Life by Ravi Shankar (1968) (Book)
– Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar West Meets East (1999, p1966) (CD)
– Pandit Ravi Shankar (2002) (DVD)
– Ravi Shankar: The Concert for World Peace (2007) (DVD)
– The Concert for Bangladesh – George Harrison and Friends (2005) (DVD)
– Rāgas & Tālas Ravi Shankar (2000, p1964) (CD)
– Orion Philip Glass (2005) (CD)
– Pandit Ravi Shankar: A Portrait of the Maestro of the Sitar (1986) (Streaming video via Medici.TV)
– Sitar Concertos Etc (2005) (Streaming audio via Alexander Street)

Music of India

Music of India: Lata Mangeshkar

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Lata Mangeshkar
b. September 28, 1929

Lata Mangeshkar

Lata Mangeshkar is the best-known and respected female singer in the history of Indian film music. She is probably best known as a playback singer for Bollywood films. Playback singers often record songs for use in films.

The Indian Hindi-language film industry is referred to as Bollywood and is based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and is one of the largest centers of film production in the world. The word is a portmanteau of “Bombay” and “Hollywood”. The most popular commercial genre of Bollywood is the masala film, which freely mixes action, comedy, drama, romance, and melodrama along with musical numbers. Masala films can generally be considered musicals. Indian cinema has been the largest producer of musicals in the world since the 1960s, when it exceeded America’s musical film output. Playback singers record songs for the film soundtracks, and the actors lip-sync said songs for the cameras.

Aap ki sewa mein poster

Poster for the 1947 Hindi film Aap ki sewa mein which features an early example of Mangeshkar’s work

Lata Mangeshkar is said to have recorded more film songs than any other singer. She has recorded songs in over a thousand (!!) Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages, though primarily in Marathi, Hindi and Bengali.

Music really has been the driving force in Mangeshkar’s life. Her father Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and theatre actor. She received her first lessons in music from her father and was performing as an actress in her father’s plays by the age of five. She is the elder sister of singers Asha Bhosle, Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Usha Mangeshkar and Meena Mangeshkar, all accomplished musicians and singers in their own right.

In 1942 when Mangeshkar was 13, her father died of heart disease and Lata immediately joined the Bollywood film industry as an actress-singer to help support her family.

Here is a Youtube clip from Azaad a 1955 film which features Mangeshkar’s voice:

Lata Mangeshkar has received many awards and honors during the course of her career. India’s highest award in cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, was bestowed on her in 1989 by the Government of India. She also has been awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor.

In 1974, The Guinness Book of Records listed Mangeshkar as the most recorded artist in the history, stating that she had reportedly recorded “not less than 25,000 solo, duet and chorus backed songs in 20 Indian languages” between 1948 and 1974. (The actual number of songs she has recorded is a matter of some dispute. Regardless, she is certainly ONE of the most recorded artists in the world.)

Here is a Youtube clip of the song “Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jaana Sanam” (“My love, when I saw you then I realized” per Google translate) sung by Mangeshkar and Kumar Sanu from the 1995 Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (transl. The Big-Hearted Will Take the Bride, per Wikipedia):

In addition to singing, Mangeshkar has composed music for five films and also produced four films. Her career spans over seven decades now and she has only recently begun to show signs of slowing down (a bit) at the age of 91. Her influence on Indian film and popular music is profound.

Here is a small sampling of library resources concerning Lata Mangeshkar, Bollywood, and Indian popular music:

– “Lata Mangeshkar”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) (Reference entry)
– Global Divas: Voices from Women of the World (1995) (CD)
– “Lata Mangeshkar”, The Palgrave Dictionary of Women’s Biography (2005) (Reference entry)
– Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song by Jayson Beaster-Jones (2015) (Book)
– Rough Guide to Bollywood (2002) (CD)
– There’ll Always Be Stars in the Sky: The Indian Film Music Phenomenon (2003) (DVD)
– More Than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music edited by Gregory D. Booth and Bradley Shope (2014) (Book)
– Focus: Popular Music in Contemporary India by Natalie Rose Sarrazin (2020) (Book)

Music of India

Music of India: Indian Classical Music

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Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has deep roots in Hinduism.

Saraswati

Saraswati is the goddess of music and knowledge in the Hindu tradition.

In general, Indian classical music has three foundational elements:

1) Raga: a series of five or more musical notes used to form a melody — similar to modes or scales in Western music. Raga make much more use of microtones than Western music (many notes fall in between notes in Western scales in terms of pitch). Raga are often associated with specific times of day and/or seasons.

2) Tala: a rhythmic pattern that determines the larger rhythmic structure of a piece. Tala literally means “clap”.

3) Improvisation around a raga is the basis for most Indian classical music.

Indian classical music has two major traditions:

* North Indian music is also called Hindustani is influenced by Arabic and Persian musical practice as a result of the Islamic conquest of the region in the Middle Ages. Hindustani music emphasizes improvisation and exploration of all aspects of raga and gives slightly more prominence to instrumental forms.
Here are a couple of links to catalog records for Music Library resources featuring Hindustani music:
– India: Hindustani Music (streaming via Alexander Street)
– North Indian Classical Music (CD)

* South Indian music is also called Carnatic music. It is much more oriented toward vocal music (even when instruments are played alone, they are played in a style meant to imitate singing). Improvisation is employed but Carnatic music also makes use of composed devotional pieces.
Here are a couple of links to catalog records for Music Library resources featuring Carnatic music:
– Flowers of Southern Indian Classical Carnatic Music(CD)
– Ragas from South India (streaming via Alexander Street)

The types of instruments used in North and South Indian music also differ.
Hindustani music makes use of the sitar, sarod, tabla and tampura.

Hindustani instruments

A sampling of instruments most commonly used in Hindustani music

Carnatic music makes use of instruments like the vina, mridamgam, and shruti.

Carnatic instruments

A sampling instruments most commonly used in Carnatic music

Here are a few more resources the on Indian classical music that can be found in the Music Library’s holdings:
– Indian Classical Music (DVD) (also available streaming via Infobase)
– The Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music (Book)
– The Raga Guide: A Survey of 74 Hindustani Ragas (Book)
– Classical Music of India (Book)
– “Music and Emotion: A Case for North Indian Classical Music” (journal article)
– “Perception of Modulations in South Indian Classical (Carnātic) Music by Student and Teacher Musicians: A Cross-Cultural Study” (journal article)

One might also stop by Parsons Music Library and check out our current display on the Music of India which will be available to visit until the end of February!

Music of India

Parsons Playlists: Halloween 2020

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Welcome to the third installment of Parsons Playlists, back after a hiatus and featuring a Halloween playlist from Music Library Associate, Melanie Armstrong.

Halloween 2020

Melanie says: “Since Halloween 2020 is going to be a bit … different, I – your friendly neighborhood Music Library Associate – made a playlist in that vein.
I’ve left out some of the more obvious Halloween playlist picks (like “Thriller“, or “Spooky“, or “Ghostbusters“), and hope you’ll enjoy this idiosyncratic selection! I’ve included some songs for the Halloween blue moon (the first Halloween blue moon since 1944) among other things.”

Otis Redding – “Trick or Treat”

Billie Eilish – “Bury A Friend”

billie eilish

The Cramps – “I Was A Teenage Werewolf”

Missy Elliott – “Get Ur Freak On”

Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On

The Marcels – “Blue Moon”

(This doo-wop version is arguably the most famous version of “Blue Moon”, but it was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934!)

King Harvest – “Dancing in the Moonlight”

blue moon

Electric Light Orchestra – “Strange Magic”

Squirrel Nut Zippers – “Hell”

Vintage Halloween Dance

Van Halen – “Runnin’ With The Devil”
(in tribute to Eddie Van Halen who passed away this month)

Talking Heads – “Psycho Killer”

The Police – “Murder By Numbers”

Halloween dogs

The White Stripes – “Little Ghost”

Louis Armstrong – “The Skeleton in the Closet”

Le Squellette Joyeux

The Divine Comedy – “The Happy Goth”

They Might Be Giants – “Dead”

Groovie Ghoulies – “(She’s My) Vampire Girl”

Black Cat and Jack O'Lantern

Yoko Ono – “Yes, I’m A Witch”

Eels – “My Beloved Monster”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer stake

Billy Joel – “The Stranger”
(a song about masks feels EXTRA appropriate at the moment … plus fun with metaphors!)

R.E.M. – “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”

And here it all is as a Spotify playlist for you:

Plus here’s a bonus (not available on Spotify) cheese-tacular Halloween artifact from the 1980s featuring the inimitable Tim Curry:

We sincerely hope that everyone has a safe & fun Halloween (despite the particular weirdness of 2020).

jack o lantern

YouTube playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU94rco57Zew8nvrzDii5yoNOsWmj69_s

It was 50 years ago today …

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The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album was released on June 1, 1967 in the UK and on June 2, 1967 in the US. It became the soundtrack for the fabled “Summer of Love” both influencing and reflecting the flower powered youth culture of the time, but its appeal has proven to be timeless.

Beatles - Sgt. Pepper album cover

The Beatles stopped touring in August of 1966, and took some time off. The group reconvened in November of that year and spent over 400 hours in the studio between November 1966 and April 1967 completing the album. (This was a far cry from their first foray into EMI Studios to record their first album in 1963 — that entire album was recorded in less than 24 hours!) This studio time led to all sorts of interesting musical experimentation and since the group had decided they were done with touring, there was no need to worry about whether the songs could be produced live on stage. The album as a whole is a fascinating almalgamation of harmonium, harpsichord, brass band, fairground noises, harp, psychedelia, Leslie speaker tweaking, multi-tracking, tape loops, full orchestra, crashing apocalyptic piano chords, dog whistles and more. The Beatles’ musical ideas required lots of technical innovation from producer George Martin and studio engineers.

Sgt. Pepper gatefold

The eclectic mix of songs was loosely held together by the “concept” of a fictional Edwardian alter-ego Sgt. Pepper Band and the songs are wonderfully joyful. From the psychedelic marching band music that introduces us to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, to the psychedelic imagery of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” ( title inspired by a drawing by John Lennon’s young son, Julian), to the music hall whimsy of McCartney’s “When I’m Sixty-Four”, to the spiritual tone of Harrison’s sitar-laced “Within You Without You”, to the amazing shifting tones, full orchestral crescendo and avant garde surrealism of “A Day In The Life” (one of the greatest ever Lennon/McCartney collaborations in this author’s opinion), there is much to enjoy, right through to the startling tape loop ending inserted into the run-out groove of the original LPs (and included on CD reissues if you wait for it). The Beatles drew inspiration from varied sources like an 1843 circus poster (“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”), a TV cornflakes commercial (“Good Morning, Good Morning”), news stories about runaway teens (“She’s Leaving Home”) or car accidents (“A Day in the Life”).

An alternate take from the Sgt. Pepper cover photo session

An alternate take from the Sgt. Pepper cover photo session

There is just as much to enjoy in a perusal of the album art itself. The cover features a pop art inspired collage of various folks (famous and not so famous) that the Beatles chose as inspirational to them, elaborate gatefold sleeve packaging (with bonus cardboard mustaches and pseudo-military insignia in early pressings) and includes the lyrics to all of the songs printed on the back cover, something that had never been done before with a pop album.

Sgt. Pepper back cover with lyrics

Sgt. Pepper signaled that pop & rock music could also be considered high art or even progressive social expression and more than just disposable entertainment. Musicologists cite Sgt. Pepper as continuing the musical maturation of the Beatles as a group that began with Revolver and Rubber Soul. It was also extremely influential on the development of progressive rock with its emphasis on studio experimentation, elaborate instrumentation and insistence on pushing the boundaries beyond conventional subject matter and track lengths. The album has been an influence on countless others since its release in 1967.

Here’s a sampling of a few of (many) parody takeoffs on the iconic cover:

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention – We’re Only In It For The Money

Frank Zappa & The Mother's Of Invention

The Simpsons – The Yellow Album

Simpsons - "The Yellow Album"

The Rutles – Sgt. Rutter’s Only Darts Club BandRutles - Sgt. Rutter

Golden Throats – a compilation of critically lambasted cover songs

Golden Throats

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band consistently ranks in critics and fans listings of best albums of all time. Among numerous accolades and awards, it is ranked # 1 in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It’s included in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry and is one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Whether Sgt. Pepper is an old favorite or if it’s brand new to you, this classic album / cultural touchstone is well worth a listen!

Sgt. Pepper cut outs insert

Sgt. Pepper cut outs insert

“Lights, please … ” – “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and the Music of Vince Guaraldi

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A Charlie Brown Christmas - Title Card

The animated TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas made its debut on December 9th, 1965 on CBS.

The special was atypical for most cartoons at the time because of its contemplative message, its use of real children (some of whom were too young to read) to voice the characters as opposed to adult voice actors and its LACK of use of a laugh track. (Peanuts creator Charles Schulz refused to allow one saying he wanted to “let the people at home enjoy the show at their own speed, in their own way.”)

A Charlie Brown Christmas - cast

A Charlie Brown Christmas was also noteworthy for its holiday-infused jazz soundtrack created by musician/composer Vince Guaraldi.

Jazz musician/composer Vince Guaraldi

Jazz musician/composer Vince Guaraldi

Guaraldi became involved with the Peanuts before the start of production for the Christmas special. Producer Lee Mendelson heard Guaraldi’s 1963 radio hit “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” while traveling by taxi on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and initially commissioned Guaraldi write a jazz soundtrack for a television documentary about Charles Schulz called A Boy Named Charlie Brown that wound up never being broadcast. According to Mendelson, the first performance of “Linus & Lucy” occurred over the phone during the production of the documentary. Fortunately, the Christmas special allowed the piece to find a home.

Peanuts characters dance to Guaraldi's iconic "Linus & Lucy"

Peanuts characters dance to Guaraldi’s iconic “Linus & Lucy”

The jazz soundtrack to the special was initially a hard sell, both to Charles Schulz (who was not much of a jazz fan at the time) and to the network since jazz had never been used in an animated special before. Despite Schulz’s initial feelings about jazz, he pushed for Guaraldi’s music to be included because he believed it created a perfect “bubbly, childlike tone” for the show.

Interestingly, the song “Christmas Time Is Here” was something of a happy accident. According to Lee Mendelson: “For the Christmas Show, [Vince] wrote an original melody that wasn’t in the documentary. It was a beautiful melody that opened the scene where the kids are skating. When we looked at the final cut, it seemed to me to be very slow. I said, ‘Let me see if I can find some lyricists to put some words to it.’ I couldn’t find anybody. I sat down at my kitchen table and in 10 minutes I wrote a poem called ‘Christmas Time Is Here’ to the melody. I wrote all the words down, handed it to Vince, and said, ‘Find a choir of kids to sing this.’ He had been working with a choir to do a jazz mass in San Francisco. He rushed them all together, about two days later. So that whole thing was written and recorded in about over a two-day period and then rushed into the final mix [of the special].” The song has gone on to become a holiday standard and has been covered by many artists including Tony Bennett and Diana Krall.

In fact, it is hard to imagine the holiday season in the US now without the beloved special and its music!

Charlie Brown Christmas album art

Univeristy of Richmond students, faculty and staff can stream the soundtrack to the special by logging into the Alexander Street press database to which the library subscribes. They can also access Guaraldi’s Grace Cathedral Jazz Mass (which also celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015) as well as several of Guaraldi’s other albums.

Grace Cathedral concert

A Charlie Brown Christmas has become the second longest running animated Christmas special of all time (behind 1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) and the soundtrack album was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2011.

Charlie_Brown_Xmas_tree

The Parsons Music Library has a special display about A Charlie Brown Christmas and Vince Guaraldi that you can visit through the end of the year — come check it out!