All posts by Michael Goldberg

Audio: Bob Dylan Interviewed By Nat Hentoff Part Two, February 1966 – ‘If I had come out and sung “Desolation Row” five years ago, I probably would’ve been murdered.’

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Today I have part two of this amazing interview from February 1966 that Bob Dylan did for Playboy magazine.

I posted part one yesterday.

Nat Hentoff, who had profiled Dylan for the New Yorker in 1964, is the interviewer.

Dylan says some fascinating things, especially given that we now know what’s happened since 1966. This interview was done after the release of Highway 61 Revisited but before Blonde On Blonde was released.

Just one example:

“I refuse to be any kind of Lawrence Welk or something like that. I’ll continue making the records. They’re not going to be any better from now on, they’re gonna be just different.”

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Bob Dylan’s ‘Shadows In The Night’ Drops To #22 In U.S.

Music

Two weeks after release, Bob Dylan’s critically acclaimed new album, Shadows In The Night, has dropped to #22 on the Billboard Top 200 in the U.S., down from its debut at #7.

Sales in the U.S. for the past week total 23,943 copies.

The album sold 49,791 in it’s first week of release, and total sales in the U.S. to date are 83,734.

The album debuted in the Top Ten in 18 countries last week including the U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland and Australia.

The album has received near umiversal accliam from music critics. The album scored a rating of 83 out of 100 at Metacritic, based on 30 reviews from such media as Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Mojo, The Guardian and Pitchfork.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Audio: Bob Dylan Interviewed By Nat Hentoff, February 1966 – ‘That’s a fallacy… Nobody sits around talking about [not liking] anybody over 30’

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Amazing interview from February 1966 that Bob Dylan did for Playboy magazine. I’ve previously posted some of the transcript but now you can hear the interview.

Nat Hentoff, who had profiled Dylan for the New Yorker in 1964, is the interviewer.

By the way, interesting to hear Dylan praise Buck Owens in this interview, given his recent MusicCares speech.

Part One:

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Dean Of American Rock Critics Writes His Memoir – Tales Of New York’s Punk Scene & More

Music

At some point in the ’70s I believe, the writer/editor Robert Christgau gave himself the title, “Dean Of American Rock Critics.”

Whether he was serious or joking at the time, that title turned out to be an accurate one, for not only has Christgau been one of the smartest and street-saavy critics in the relatively brief history of rock criticism, but he mentored many of the best critics that came after him.

Now he’s written his memoir, “Going Into The City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man.”

Rolling Stone has run an excerpt, it’s real good, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the book.

Here’s some of the Rolling Stone excerpt, in which Christgau talks about Television. You can read all of it here.

It was also a vinyl album, forty-five minutes split right down the middle, and this sealed its status, because side one, which shifts materially song to unforgettable song without diluting a band sound that ignores every parallel no matter how complimentary (Byrds-Dead-Stones are all miles away), is as good as album sides get, rushing forward as one thing yet revealing new details every time you play it again. With addictive guitar riffs securing each track, there’s not a misplaced second, and much of it was recorded in one take. Side two can’t possibly keep up, and doesn’t — I find the devotional “Guiding Light” soupy myself, and only “Prove It” with its droll “Just the facts” stays with me like “See No Evil” or “Venus” or “Friction” or “Marquee Moon” itself. So make side two a high A minus. But side one is an A plus plus plus, and side one is why so many treasure Marquee Moon as a classic.

Going outside Manhattan and against type, I assigned the Riff to Virginia-born Boston Episcopalian Ken Emerson, who loved it, only not in the terms I did. For Emerson, Marquee Moon had it all over reductive Ramones and apocalyptic Patti because Television were “grown up.” Everywhere he listened, music or lyrics, he found a “doubleness,” “a golden mean,” an “insistence on seeing things whole.” But while the doubleness is certainly thematic, remembering how young I was when I latched onto “Vacillation” makes me wonder how grown up it is. What I love most about the lyrics of Marquee Moon is their evocation of that youthful moment when you’re this close to figuring everything out, voicing in very few words a multivalence worthy of that adventure’s complexity and confusion — beautifully, profoundly, naively, contradictorily, romantically, kinetically, jokily, cockily, fearfully, drunkenly, goofily, impudently — so nervous and excited you could fly, or is it faint? And with the single line “Broadway looked so medieval” added to what we know about its East Village provenance, it situates this philosophical action in the downtown night.

Like many great albums and more pretentious ones, Marquee Moon has gathered armies of exegetes set on getting to the bottom of every word, and bless ’em, really. But they’re misguided. Not only don’t I know what all the lyrics mean, Verlaine doesn’t know what all the lyrics mean, and it’s a dead end to speculate. When we ran into this problem with Coleridge (who Verlaine would have ditched for being a junkie like Hell and Lloyd), it was because he let the poem get away from him. Here it’s more like Verlaine wanted the poem to get away from him, because he knew the paradoxes it posed were unresolvable and because he knew the guitars would blast through and lift over. So say “See No Evil” is about the onrushing illimitability of desire and “Venus” is about the enveloping impossibility of love and “Friction” is about the bracing inevitability of conflict and I don’t know what the fuck “Marquee Moon” is about except that it’s ten minutes long and you feel it’ll be perfectly OK with you if it goes on forever, like, er — some amalgam of show business and heaven? C’mon. “Elevation” and “Guiding Light”? Getting high and losing either God or love. “Prove It”? So funny it don’t matter. “Torn Curtain”? Ten minutes again, only not much longer please because this case is closed you just said. Ba-da-boom.

In the long wake of punk’s speedy demise and multiple afterlives, UK extremists and their offspring got permanently exercised about a doubleness that pitted “rockism” against — what, exactly? Sometimes the prog tendencies of “post-punk,” sometimes just pop. This polarity is so stupid I generally refuse to discuss it, but in this case I’ll suspend my disbelief in the interest of provisional clarification. Forced at gunpoint to choose, I’d call myself some kind of poppist — Pop Art was formative for me, I have a history of respecting the charts, and what are perception-altering short-fast-hard anythings if not pop? Note too that the two least punk of the indelible albums named above are pop — Parallel Lines proudly, More Songs About Buildings and Food ironically. And then recall that Marquee Moon is a rock album. Why do I believe the rockism-versus-poppism polarity is stupid? Because while most popular musicians who take themselves too seriously are mooncalves, now and again one will home in on something deeper than the pop-identified would dare — in a form livelier and more liberating than the highbrow-identified would know was there if it bit them in the cranium. So I’ll say it and you scoff if you want. The fact that Marquee Moon is a rock album is basic to why it’s a masterpiece — a great work of art. Ba-da-boom.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

A Journey Towards Cultural Freedom (And Bob Dylan) ‘On Highway 61’

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The musicians and writers whose art presaged and influenced and influenced The Sixties.

By Michael Goldberg.

On Highway 61 – Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom, Dennis McNally, Counterpoint Press (471 pages)

Let me start at the end and tell you that the final section of On Highway 61, some 120 pages, provides the best portrait of Bob Dylan and his creativity, what nurtured it, and how it evolved, that I’ve read to date.

Additionally, author Dennis McNally focuses on how Dylan’s worldview – and the songs he wrote and/or sung – can be characterized as part of the ongoing search for freedom in all it’s manifestations, physical, spiritual and cultural. And more. Dylan was at least as influenced by the music made by African Americans, as he was by white country and folk musicians. And this is important, as it is simply one of many examples in this terrific book that make the case that African Americans are primarily responsible for what is truly great in American music.

But there are other reasons it’s appropriate to start with Dylan. Like some of that artist’s surrealist (or perhaps hyper-real) songs of 1965 – “Desolation Row,” “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” — McNally has populated his book with an incredible array of iconic figures — including Henry David Thoreau, Miles Davis, Mark Twain, Bessie Smith and Jack Kerouac – who, like Dylan, have allowed those who have paid attention to their art to experience, as McNally puts it, “a widening of vision, a softening of the heart, and an increase in tolerance.”

No Anita Ekberg (“to make the country grow”)) and no Shakespeare (“with his pointed shoes and his bells”), but what the hell. As artfully as Dylan in his songs, McNally has made his superhuman crew fit seamlessly into this treatise on cultural freedom. In fact, those artists and their work is the story of cultural freedom.

And what is cultural freedom?

Taking from the past and making something new.

Leave it to Mr. Dylan, who McNally quotes from a 1987 US magazine interview, to give us a clue.

“When I first heard Elvis’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was gonna be my boss,” Dylan said. “Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”

Art that makes you feel like busting out of jail. That would be one definition.

Or, as Dylan sang it, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.”

Yeah, cultural freedom.

But there’s more to it…

Read the rest of this review at Addicted To Noise AU.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Bob Dylan Clarifies MusicCares Speech During New Interview – ‘ I wasn’t dissing Merle at all’

Music

Clearly Bob Dylan said some things during his MusicCares speech last Friday night (February 6, 2014) that bothered some people. At one point during the speech, Dylan goes off on Merle Haggard.

A transcript of the speech was posted on the L.A. Times website and this is what the Times has Dylan saying:

Merle Haggard didn’t even think much of my songs. I know he didn’t. He didn’t say that to me, but I know way back when he didn’t. Buck Owens did, and he recorded some of my early songs. Merle Haggard — “Mama Tried,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.” I can’t imagine Waylon Jennings singing “The Bottle Let Me Down.”

“Together Again”? That’s Buck Owens, and that trumps anything coming out of Bakersfield. Buck Owens and Merle Haggard? If you have to have somebody’s blessing — you figure it out.

A day or so after the Times published their transcript, Rolling Stone published what they said was “a transcript of the singer’s speech, taken from Dylan’s own notes.” You’ll notice that this is a big different than what the Times ran. Since I haven’t heard a tape of the speech, I don’t know if this is what Dylan actually said, or if it’s what he intended to say.

Merle Haggard didn’t think much of my songs, but Buck Owens did, and Buck even recorded some of my early songs. Now I admire Merle – “Mama Tried,” “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down,” “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.” I understand all that but I can’t imagine Waylon Jennings singing “The Bottle Let Me Down.” I love Merle but he’s not Buck. Buck Owens wrote “Together Again” and that song trumps anything that ever came out of Bakersfield. Buck Owens and Merle Haggard? If you have to have somebody’s blessing – you figure it out. What I’m saying here is that my songs seem to divide people. Even people in the music community.

Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, for example, posted this on Facebook in response to me posting the transcript of Dylan’s speech”

“dead to me for hating on Merle”

Here’s Haggard’s reponse:

In any case, Dylan has followed up the speech with a fascinating interview with music journalist Bill Flanagan that is posted at Bob Dylan’s own website.

Here’s the exchange between Dylan and Flanagan regarding Merle Haggard:

WHAT WAS THAT THING ABOUT MERLE, SOUNDS LIKE YOU WERE DISSING HIM, WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?

No, not at all, I wasn’t dissing Merle, not the Merle I know. What I was talking about happened a long time ago, maybe in the late sixties. Merle had that song out called “Fighting Side of Me” and I’d seen an interview with him where he was going on about hippies and Dylan and the counter culture, and it kind of stuck in my mind and hurt, lumping me in with everything he didn’t like. But of course times have changed and he’s changed too. If hippies were around today, he’d be on their side and he himself is part of the counter culture … so yeah, things change. I’ve toured with him and have the highest regard for him, his songs, his talent – I even wanted him to play fiddle on one of my records and his Jimmie Rodgers tribute album is one of my favorites that I never get tired of listening to. He’s also a bit of a philosopher. He’s serious and he’s funny. He’s a complete man and we’re friends these days. We have a lot in common. Back then, though, Buck and Merle were closely associated; two of a kind. They defined the Bakersfield sound. Buck reached out to me in those days, and lifted up my spirits when I was down, I mean really down – oppressed on all sides and down and that meant a lot, that Buck did that. I wasn’t dissing Merle at all, we were different people back then. Those were difficult times. It was more intense back then and things hit harder and hurt more.

It seems to me that whatever Dylan thought in the past, he know values Haggard as a musician, songwriter and friend.

One of the surprises in the interview, at least for me, was Dylan’s praise of an artist I have dug since I first heard him: Willy DeVille.

DeVille fronted a terrific band, Mink DeVille, got their break during the New York punk moment of the mid-’70s. They recorded two terrific albums, before breaking up.

Here’s what Dylan has to say about Willy DeVille:

Bill Flanagan: ARE THERE ANY OTHER PERFORMERS BESIDES BILLY LEE RILEY THAT YOU CAN RECOMMEND FOR THE HALL OF FAME?

Dylan: Yeah sure, Willy DeVille for one, he stood out, his voice and presentation ought to have gotten him in there by now.

Flanagan: I AGREE WITH YOU, MAYBE HE’S BEEN OVERLOOKED. HE CARRIED A LOT OF HISTORY. THE DRIFTERS, BEN E. KING, SOLOMON BURKE, STREET CORNER DOO WOP AND JOHN LEE HOOKER WERE ALL THERE IN WHAT HE DID AND HOW HE PERFORMED.

Dylan: I think so too.

Flanagan: YOU SUGGESTED THAT SOME OF THE ACTS IN THE HALL OF FAME MIGHT NOT BE TRUE ROCK & ROLL. YOU MENTIONED THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS, ABBA, ALICE COOPER. I HAVE TO STICK UP FOR STEELY DAN. NOT EVERYTHING THEY DID WAS ROCK & ROLL BUT “BODHISATTVA,” “SHOW BIZ KIDS,” “MY OLD SCHOOL” – THOSE SONGS ROCKED LIKE A BASTARD.

Dylan: Yeah they might have rocked like a bastard, and I’m not saying that they didn’t, but put on any one of those records and then put on “In The Heat of the Moment” by Willy or “Steady Driving Man” or even “Cadillac Walk.” I’m not going to belittle Steely Dan but there is a difference.

Read the whole interview here.

Mink DeVille, “Cadillac Walk”:

Mink DeVille, “Steady Driving Man”:

Willy DeVille, “Heat Of The Moment”:

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Listen Right Now! GZA + Tom Morello = ‘The Mexican’

Music

“The Mexican” is a new single from GZA, who recorded it with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. It’a version of “Babe Ruth’s 1972 song of the same name that has been sampled numerous times,” according to Pitchfork.

Check it out.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Bob Dylan’s ‘Shadows In The Night’ Charts At #6 & #7 In The U.S.

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Well I was wrong. Very wrong.

While I predicted last week that Bob Dylan’s excellent new album, Shadows in The Night, would chart at #1 in the U.S. following its first week of release, in fact the album has charted at #6, according to Nielsen SoundScan sales data chart for current releases.

Or #7, depending on which chart you consult.

The album is at #7 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, which also includes older releases.

The Billboard Top 200 albums chart is partially based on sales information collected by Nielsen SoundScan but incorporates other data as well.

Shadows In The Night has sold 49,791 copies following its release on Tuesday, February 3, 2014, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The album has done better, chartwise, in other countries. It charted at #1 in England (Official Charts Company), Ireland (Irish Recorded Music Association) and Sweden (Sverigetopplistan).

Additionally, Shadows In The Night has charted at #3 on Austria’s Ö3 Austria Top 40 Longplay (Albums) chart, #2 on the Swiss Hitparade Albums Top 100, #3 on Belgium’s Ultratop albums chart, at #2 on the Dutch MegaCharts albums chart and at #6 on the German Offiziell albums chart.

In the U.S, the albums that sold more copies than Shadows In The Night are the various artists compilation, NOW 53 (99,543) at #1, Taylor Swift’s 1989 (76,769) at #2, Fifth Harmony’s Reflection (61,854) at #3, Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour (56,937) at #4, and Ed Sheeran’s X (53,262) at #5, according to SoundScan.

Billboard has a slightly different order since their chart combines physical album sales, audio on-demand streaming activity and digital sales: Taylor Swift at #1, the NOW 53 compilation at #2, Ed Sheeran at #3, Sam Smith at #4 and Fifth Harmony at #5 and Meghan Trainor’s Title (59,000) at #6.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Video: Sleater-Kinney Kick Off Tour In Spokane – ‘Price Tag,’ ‘Dig Me Out’ & More

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Corin Tucker in Spokane, 2015.

Sleater-Kinney played their first live show in years on February 8, 2015 in at the Knitting Factory in Spokane, Washington.

From the clips you can see what an incredible show it was. The group is as impassioned as ever.

I saw them at a number of shows first time around, from one at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, to an all-ages show in Olympia, Washington to a great night at Irving Plaza in New York. Plus shows at the Great American Music Hall and The Fillmore.

They were all incredible. Check out these clips from a few nights ago to see and hear how amazing this band is right now.

“Price Tag”:

“Get Up” (partial):

“Sympathy”:

“Jumpers”:

Encore

“Dig Me Out”:

“Turn It On” (partial):

“Modern Girl”:

Don’t know what song this fairly short clip is from:

Setlist:

‘Price Tag’
‘Fangless’
‘Start Together’
‘Oh!’
‘No Anthems’
‘Get Up’
‘Ironclad’
‘One Beat’
‘Bury Our Friends’
‘What’s Mine Is Yours’
‘One More Hour’
‘No Cities to Love’
‘Surface Envy’
‘Words and Guitar’
‘Sympathy’
‘A New Wave’
‘Entertain’
‘Jumpers’
‘Gimme Love’
‘Dig Me Out’
‘I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone’
‘Turn It On’
‘Modern Girl’

Behind the Songs On Bob Dylan’s ‘Shadows In The Night’

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On Bob Dylan’s Facebook page, info about the songs he covers on Shadows In The Night has been posted.

Here are excerpts from what’s there so far with links to each entire post:

I’M A FOOL TO WANT YOU
Song written in 1951
Joel S Herron, Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf

COVERS:
Many came to know the song from Billie Holiday’s last sessions for Columbia Records, Lady in Satin, released in 1958. Also recorded by Chet Baker, The Four Freshmen, Billy Eckstine, Sergio Franchi, Sammy Davis Junior, Helen Merrill, Dinah Washington, Dionne Warwick, Robert Goulet, Tony Bennett, Shirley Bassey, Hadda Brooks, Peggy Lee and Steve Lawrence.

Joel Herron was the musical director of the famous Copacabana nightclub during the 1940s. He also was a pianist, arranger and accompanist. Lyricist, Jack Wolf was a close friend. Herron had been using Brahms’ Third Symphony as his theme song at the Copa, when Wolf suggested using the Andantino section from the same symphony as a melody for a song. Together they created a composition that Frank Sinatra recorded in 1950, entitled TAKE MY LOVE. Released as a single during 1951, a low point in Sinatra’s recording career, TAKE MY LOVE failed to chart. At that time, Mitch Miller, who was the head of A&R at Columbia Records had lost faith in Frank’s ability to sell records. Indeed, many consider the absolute nadir in Sinatra’s career was when Miller forced him to record the novelty song, MAMA WILL BARK. Ironically, eleven short years later Miller also showed complete indifference to John Hammond’s new signing to Columbia Records, Bob Dylan…

Read more here.

The Night We Called It a Day
Song written 1941
Matt Dennis, Tom Adair

COVERS:
Doris Day, Chris Connor, June Christy, Chet Baker, Diana Krall, The Hi-Lo’s, Frank Sinatra.

Matt Dennis was a singer, pianist, bandleader, arranger and songwriter. Born in Seattle to a musical Vaudevillian family, he formed his own band in the mid-30s with Dick Haymes as vocalist. Dennis also worked as vocal coach and arranger for big band singers and popular recording artists including Martha Tilton and Jo Stafford. When Stafford joined the Tommy Dorsey Band in 1939, she persuaded Dorsey to hire Dennis as an arranger. Along with lyricist Tom Adair, Dennis wrote fourteen songs in one year alone including EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME – a hit for the band with lead vocalist Frank Sinatra…

Read more here.

STAY WITH ME
Song written in 1963
Carolyn Leigh, Jerome Moross

COVERS:
The song is best known as its alternate title, “Theme Song from The Cardinal,” as sung by Frank Sinatra. The Cardinal was a 1963 Otto Preminger film which follows the journey of a young Boston priest as he climbs the hierarchy of the Catholic Church during the rise of Fascism in Europe.

Carolyn Leigh was a New York born lyricist who wrote for Broadway, movies and popular music. After graduating New York University, Leigh began her career as a copywriter for radio stations and advertising agencies. She transitioned to writing lyrics for Broadway musicals including “Peter Pan,” “Wild Cat,” ” Little Me” and “How Now Dow Jones.” Her biggest successes came in partnership with Cy Coleman in the early 60s. Together they penned such notable hits as, WITCHCRAFT, HEY LOOK ME OVER, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME…

Read more here:

AUTUMN LEAVES
Song written in 1945, English lyrics written in 1947
Joseph Kosma, Jacques Prevert , Johnny Mercer

COVERS:
Jo Stafford, Edith Piaff (in French), Tom Jones, Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Tony Bennett, Louis Prima. The song has long been a favorite of jazz musicians with over 1400 cover versions from Paul Whiteman, to Ben Webster, to Cannonball Adderly, Bill Evans, Charles Lloyd and Coleman Hawkins.

Joseph Kosma was born in Budapest in 1905. A musical prodigy, he began piano lessons at age 5 and composed his first opera at age 11. He studied at the Liszt Academy with Bela Bartok. He emigrated to Paris in 1933 where he met poet and screenwriter Jacques Prevert, who in turn introduced him to filmmaker, Jean Renoir. During World War II, Kosma was placed under house arrest and was banned from composing music. However, Prevert arranged for him to continue composing for films using other musicians as a front. It was in this way that he wrote the music for Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) in 1945. His other film credits include La Grand Illusion (1937), La Bete Humaine (The Human Beast) (1938) and La Regle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) (1939) all directed by Jean Renoir. Although he did not write many songs he is legendary for composing the melody to the Jacques Prevert poem Les Feuilles Mortes, which would eventually become Autumn Leaves…

Read more here.

Why Try To Change Me Now
Song written in 1952
Cy Coleman, Joseph Allen McCarthy

COVERS:
Frank Sinatra had the first recording. Other covers include Sammy Davis Jr., Fionna Apple, Jimmy Scott, and Nancy Wilson.
Born Seymour Kaufman in The Bronx in 1929, Cy Coleman was a composer, songwriter and jazz pianist. He was a child prodigy who gave piano recitals at Town Hall and Carnegie Hall between the ages of 6 and 9. Prior to beginning his Broadway career he led a trio which became a successful nightclub attraction. Success on Broadway first came as a composer in collaboration with Joseph McCarthy, Jr. But his biggest successes started in 1960 once he paired with lyricist Carolyn Leigh. Together they wrote WITCHCRAFT and THE BEST IS YET TO COME, HEY LOOK ME OVER, among many others…

Read more here.

Some Enchanted Evening
Song written in 1949
Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers

COVERS:
Bing Crosby, Barbara Streisand, Al Jolson, Andy Williams, Jo Stafford, Perry Como, Ezio Pinza, Harry Connick, Jr., Art Garfunkel, Jay & the Americans, Frank Sinatra.

From the musical South Pacific, SOME ENCHANTED EVENING is considered the single biggest popular hit to come out of any Rodgers and Hammerstein show. In the original Broadway Production, the song was sung by former Metropolitan Opera bass, Ezio Pinza.
Oscar Hammerstein was born in New York City in 1895, the grandson of a Jewish theater impresario. His father was a Vaudeville theater manager and producer. He attended Columbia University and studied at Columbia Law School, but would soon quit the study of law to pursue theater. For the next 40 years he would be one of the most successful and prolific lyricist and theatrical producers of musicals in America…

Read more here.

FULL MOON AND EMPTY ARMS
Song written in 1945
Buddy Kaye, Ted Mossman

COVERS:
Robert Goulet, Sarah Vaughn, Jerry Vale, Eddie Fisher, Donna Brooks. Best known version is by Frank Sinatra.

This song is based on Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2, written between 1900 and 1901. It became Rachmaninoff’s most popular composition and built his reputation as a concerto composer. Born to an aristocratic family in Russia in 1873, Rachmaninoff’s first success came as a pianist – giving his first concert by the age of nineteen. In that same year he composed and performed an opera based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin, which became an immediate success in Moscow. The Russian Revolution forced him to leave the country in 1917. Eventually he emigrated to the United States in 1918 after receiving several lucrative performance offers. He supported himself and his family as a world renown concert pianist until his death, in Beverly Hills, in 1943…

Read more here.

Where are You?
Song written in 1937
Harold Adamson, Jimmy McHugh

COVERS:
Mildred Bailey, Chris Connor, Shirley Bassey, Aretha Franklin, Brenda Lee, Julie London, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington.

Jimmy McHugh was one of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s through the 1950s. Born in Boston in 1894, McHugh struggled in a variety of odd jobs including work as a rehearsal pianist at the Boston Opera House and as a pianist/song plugger for Irving Berlin’s music publishing company. At the age of 26, he relocated to New York City, finding work as a song plugger with the Jack Mills publishing company. It was there that he teamed up with future Duke Ellington manager Irving Mills to form the Hotsy Totsy Boys, writing and recording their hit song, EVERYTHING IS HOTSY TOTSY NOW…

Read more here.

What’ll I do?
Song written in 1923
Irving Berlin

COVERS:
Julie London, Anne Murray, Lou Rawls, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, Chet Baker, Cher, Perry Como, Tommy Dorsey, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore, Eydie Gorme, Linda Ronstadt, Sarah Vaughan, Paul Whiteman, Lena Horne, Alison Krauss, Dick Haymes, Georgia Gibbs and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Born in Russia in 1888, Berlin was one of eight children. His father was a cantor in a synagogue who uprooted the family in 1893 and moved to New York in order to escape the Russian pogroms against Jews so rampant in Eastern Europe. They settled on Cherry Street on the Lower East Side in a cold water basement flat with no windows. His father, unable to find work as a cantor, labored at a meat market and gave Hebrew lessons on the side. He died when Irving was thirteen years old. With only a few years of schooling, Irving found it necessary to take to the streets to help support his family. His first job was as a newspaper boy – hawking the Evening Journal. Meanwhile the rest of the family scrounged for work; his mother as a midwife, his three sisters wrapping cigars in a factory and his older brother assembling shirts in a sweatshop…

Read more here.

That Lucky Old Sun
Song written in 1949
Haven Gillespie, Beasley Smith

COVERS:
Biggest hit version was by Frankie Lane, which reached number one in 1949. Other chart hits were by Vaughan Monroe, Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra, all in 1949. Other covers include Ray Charles, Dean Martin, Leon Russell, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, The Isley Brothers, Pat Boone, Sarah Vaughan, LaVerne Baker, Sammy Davis Junior and Bing Crosby…

Read more here.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
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[I published my novel, True Love Scars, in August of 2014.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book. Read it here. And Doom & Gloom From The Tomb ran this review which I dig. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]