viernes, 30 de junio de 2023
miércoles, 28 de junio de 2023
martes, 27 de junio de 2023
domingo, 25 de junio de 2023
BONUS 002 - APPRECIATION
In Spain there is a saying which states: "Es de bien nacido ser agradecido", which in a loose translation means: "One good turn deserves another". With that in mind, today, I felt compelled to do something extra and special as I am very "agradecido" to all you people "out there" who have time and again, decided to stop by and download all the many offerings amongst these pages.
As you may well imagine, this blog takes up many, many hours of the 24 hours in a day, we all dispose of. I willingly do it, as I enjoy every minute! But, it would be a "lonely" project if it were exclusively for myself. Thanks, to the wonders of the internet, I can see many people from very different countries and continents, stop by on a daily basis and check out the new "stuff". For that reason I thank you all for taking your time to stop by and can only wish you get as much pleasure in listening and watching to all the different programmes as I in doing them.
So far, there have been three "specials" dedicated to one song: "Cuando Calienta El Sol" (not belonging to Bonus Series); "It's Only Make Believe" and this "Blue Moon" special. These three songs are close to my heart and have brought many listening pleasures thoughout my life. Hopefully they have the same effect on you! Enjoy!
THANK YOU! Ab imo pectore.
sábado, 24 de junio de 2023
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 041: COUNTRY MUSIC (Episode 05) (2019)
Tell a lie long enough and it begins to smell like the truth. Tell it even longer and it becomes part of history. Throughout "Country Music," the omnibus genre documentary from Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, there are moments of tension between the stories Nashville likes to tell about itself - some true, some less so - and the way things actually were.
And while from a distance, this doggedly thorough eight-part, 16-hour series, hews to the genre's party line, viewed up close it reveals the ruptures laid out in plain sight. Anxiety about race has been a country music constant for decades. In positioning country music as, essentially, the music of the white rural working class, Nashville streamlined - make that steamrollered - the genre's roots, and the ways it has always been engaged in wide-ranging cultural dialogue.
But right at the beginning of "Country Music" is an acknowledgment that slave songs formed part of early country's raw material. And then a reminder that the banjo has its roots in West African stringed gourd instruments. The series covers how A.P. Carter, a founder of the Carter Family, traveled with Lesley Riddle, a black man, to find and write down songs throughout Appalachia. And it explores how Hank Williams's mentor was Rufus Payne, a black blues musician.
Each episode of this documentary tackles a different time period, from the first Fiddlin' John Carson recordings in the 1920s up through the pop ascent of Garth Brooks in the 1990s. Burns has used this multi-episode approach on other American institutions and turning-point historical events: "The Civil War," "The Vietnam War" and "Jazz." These are subjects that merit rigor and also patience - hence the films' length. But country music, especially, demands an approach that blends reverence and skepticism, because so often its story is one in which those in control try to squelch counternarratives while never breaking a warm smile.
"Country Music" rolls its eyes at the tension between the genre imagining itself as an unvarnished platform for America's rural storytelling and being an extremely marketable racket where people from all parts of the country, from all class levels, do a bit of cosplay. Minnie Pearl, from "Hee Haw," came from a wealthy family and lived in a stately home next to the governor's mansion. Nudie Cohn, the tailor whose vividly embroidered suits became country superstar must-haves in the 1960s and beyond, was born Nuta Kotlyarenko in Kiev, and worked out of a shop in Hollywood.
The only constant in this film is Nashville's repeated efforts to fend off new ideas like a body rejecting an organ transplant. Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Hank Williams Jr. - they're all genre icons who first met resistance because of their desire to make music different from the norm of their day, then ended up establishing new norms.
Those moments pockmark an otherwise straightforward and oft-told story about country music's birth and growth : The 1927 Bristol Sessions, in which Ralph Peer first recorded the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and several others; the rapid climb and accelerated demise of Hank Williams; the feminist potency of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton; the roller coaster life of Johnny Cash; the importance of bluegrass, countrypolitan, outlaw country, Sourthern rock and pop country.
It's a taut narrative, and by design incomplete - 16 hours is enough time to tell a long story, but not always a deep one. But given that this history is being painted with broad strokes, it's especially crucial that attention is drawn to the inventions and elisions that hover over each era of the music.
Throughout the film are reminders that in Nashville, institutional memory is almost comically short. Concern about the Olivia Newton-John invasion of country music in the mid-1970s discussed in the film felt eerily reminiscent of the anxiety induced by the almost yearlong run at the top of the Billboard hot country songs chart by the pop singer Bebe Rexha, for her collaboration with Florida Georgia Line. The current battle for women performers to be heard and promoted is echoed around once per decade in the documentary. And time and again, those who appear to be rebels - Waylon Jennings, Haggard, Buck Owens - are in fact the ones most interested in the genre's traditions, agitating against a company town that specializes in smoothing out rough edges.
"Country Music" moves with the signature even-keel tempo of other Burns documentaries, which makes the handful of disruptive moments - some lighthearted, some sad - all the more striking: Mel Tillis describing the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1960s by wisecracking, "You could churn butter on that damn thing"; anything that comes out of the mouth of the journalist and gadfly Hazel Smith, who, when she was the office manager for the Hillbilly Central studio where Jennings and others recorded, coined the phrase "outlaw music".
At one poignant moment, Dwight Yoakam attempts to sing Haggard's "Holding Things Together," about a father raising his children after his wife has left him. Yoakam makes it through the first line, then gathers himself for a full 12 seconds before managing to get out the next one.
The raw pulse of songs like that - blissfully, there is ample music in this documentary - is grounding, a nod to the triumph of a genre that often steps on its own foot on the path to clarity. But rather than simply celebrate those creative peaks, "Country Music" makes it plain that the story of the genre is merely a pocket version of the story of the American musical experiment writ large: Everyone trying on poses and costumes, borrowing wildly at every turn, pointing fingers at others trying similar things, and, as soon as things become complacent, agitating for something new.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
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Of all the "Saturday Night At The Movies" we've had so far (by the way, this is Nr 41!! - Boy, how time flies!), this is one of 'em times where I don't want to skip straight to the film! Mind you, the Main Feature, is of extraordinary beauty today concerning Country Music, but the Pre-Show, has so much to offer!! This is not a double billing, it's a triple opportunity to enjoy tonight's evening to its fullest extent! So get an extra dose of popcorn and your favourite beverage as we're in for a hell of a treat! Just check the photos above, words are not necessary.
And we continue with our 60s-70s comedy sitcoms plus our cartoon delight. Alas! there is no The Batman, anymore. Last week we had the opportunity of watching the thrilling end to one of the first appearances of The Batman on the screen. Soon, we'll get a worthy replacement of these, so called, "serialized film episodes," which were so popular back in the day.
The Main Feature:
Title: Country Music: Episode 05 - The Sons And Daughters Of America
Director: Ken Burns
Cast: Documentary
Release Date: 2019
Country: United States Of America
On Your Way Out:
As our motto goes: "Grab 'em, Use 'em, Enjoy 'em". You all know by now this section is here to hopefully, enhance your experience of viewing today's flick. The pictures, the reading material plus the listening extras, all have one common goal: pleasure through learning!
Cheers.
Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
viernes, 23 de junio de 2023
miércoles, 21 de junio de 2023
martes, 20 de junio de 2023
domingo, 18 de junio de 2023
sábado, 17 de junio de 2023
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 040: LADY SINGS THE BLUES (1972)
Lady Sings The Blues (1972), is loosely based on Billie's autobiography which she wrote with William Duffy just before her death at the age of 44. The term "loosely" is well employed here. About 90% of this film is pure invention. The film opens in 1936 when Billie is thrown in jail for possession of narcotics. She is so strung out that she needs to be put in a straight jacket. The film then flashes back to when she was 14, working in Baltimore as a cleaner in a brothel, where she listens to jazz records all day long while she cleans, singing along to the records. A traumatic event occurs which sends Billie to New York, where she ends up cleaning in another brothel. She tries to get a job singing but is told she is not pretty enough. So, she goes to work as a prostitute until one day she has enough and finally does get that singing job where she gets paid in tips.
Her debut is a little shaky until she sees a handsome man, Louis McKay (Billie Dee Williams) sitting in the audience. Piano Man (Richard Pryor) warns her about McKay but Billie goes out with him anyway. They fall in love but she is offered a job singing on the road with a white band. She goes, hoping that it will help her to get a job singing at a club downtoan back in NY. While on the road, she gets hooked on heroin by one of the white musicians. McKay dumps her when he finds out. After her mother dies, Billie resolves to get off the drugs and goes into rehab where she is arrested.
After she finally gets out of jail, she resolves to quit singing but McKay knows that it is in her blood. Because of her arrest, her cabaret license is revoked so she has to go out on the road again. Her new agent tells her if she gets good reviews, he'll get her booked into Carnegie Hall. Out on the road, she relapses and Piano Man gets killed by men he owes money to. Again, she resolves to go cold turkey when she gets the hoped for concert in Carnegie Hall. The film ends with her singing at Carnegie Hall, while newspaper clippings are flashed on screen giving details of the rest of her life.
This movie seriously suffers from biopic disease. The screenplay squishes about 21 years of Holiday's life and career down to about 3 years. Billie always claimed that she didn't start using hard drugs until the 1940s and her drug arrest was actually in 1946. She didn't marry Louis McKay, a mafia enforcer until 1952, and while he did try to get her off drugs, he was also abusive as were her other two husbands. Far from being the saint she's portrayed in the film, Billie's mother Sadie also worked as a prostitute along side her daughter in Harlem and they were both arrested when Billie was 15.
There's very little sense of the period in this film, apart from the obligatory Klu Klux Klan scene and also a scene where Billie stumbles upon a young black man who has been lynched. The song "Strange Fruit," an anti-lynching song is sung shortly afterwards, but there is no historical context as to how she came to sing the song (which was written by Abel Meeropol, a white jewish schoolteacher who later adopted Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's two sons). At no time is it mentioned that most of the clubs in Harlem were for white patrons, and run by the mob. Nor is it mentioned that Billie's father was a jazz musician.
Anyone watching this film would be hard pressed to know why she was so famous and revered. The impression given is that she sang and did drugs and that's it. There's no mention of her appearances at the Apollo Theatre, that she sang with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, that she made a film with Duke Ellington. The Carnegie Hall concert was her comeback, not to show that she had finally made it. It's barely mentioned that she wrote several songs including "God Bless The Child" or what made her singing so unique.
Diana Ross is at her most effective when she is strung out on drugs, less so in her other scenes. She sings the songs beautifully but with none of the grit or heartache that Billie put into her music. Billie Dee Williams as Louis McKay is required to do little more than look handsome, dress well, and be smooth. There are no scenes about what he actually does for a living.
Of course the film plays up that a white musician gets her hooked on drugs, while the patient, long suffering black man tries to save her. Billie spent a great deal time around musicians both black and white. Marijuana and heroin were part of the culture. Richard Pryor as Piano Man basically encompasses every musician that she knew. Again, there is no mention of Lester Young, the tenor saxophonist who actually started calling her Lady Day or John Hammond the man who discovered her when she was eighteen.
The final scene sees Billie performing at Carnegie Hall, the first black artist to do so, and as Diana sings "God Bless The Child," press clippings are shown that reveal yet more tragic incidents in Billie's life after this triumphant event, revealing there was, in fact, no happy ending for Billie. In fact, the original ending had Louis walk out on Billie's life while she's still performing on stage. Billie's agent asks Louis, "What do I tell her?" Louis replies, "Just goodbye, Billie will understand." This was cut from the ending, and in the film, all you see is Louis, emotionally affected, watching Billie perform.
Diana and the film went on to be showered with awards, which included three NAACP Image Awards, Actress of the Year, Motion Picture of the Year and Actor of the Year for Billy Dee Williams. Diana also scooped the Golden Globe Best New Star Award. The icing on the cake, was being nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Not only that but Chris Clark, Suzanne De Passe and Terence McCloy were nominated for their screenplay. Michel Legrand for the music score and Gil Askey for the orchestration.
As far as the Academy Awards were concerned, the only awards won by a black actor was Sidney Poitier, and Hattie McDaniel was the recipient of an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1939 classic "Gone With The Wind." This was the first time in the Academy's history a black woman had been nominated in the Best Actress category. The forty-fifth Annual Academy Awards were held on 27 March 1973 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Diana attended with her husband (Bob), Berry Gordy, and her mother and father, Ernestine and Fred Ross. Sadly, Diana lost out to Liza Minnelli for "Cabaret", but, nonetheless, Diana had made her mark.
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
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Let's not waste time and enjoy the three short documentaries concerning Billie Holiday, plus the short film: "Symphony In Black: A Rhapsody Of Negro Life" with Duke Ellington And His Orchestra (1935), where we get the chance to enjoy Billie Holiday performing in the sequence: "A Triangle: Dance, Jealousy, Blues!" Plus, an extra documentary on Diana Ross, titled: "The Story Of The Songs" and Diana Ross performing live in Glastonbury in 2022!!
And we continue with our 60s-70s comedy sitcoms plus our cartoon delight and last but not least the last remaining chapter of The Batman! You're not gonna miss it, are you?
The Main Feature:
Title: Lady Sings The Blues
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Cast: Diana Ross / Billy Dee Williams / Richard Pryor
Release Date: 1972
Country: United States
On Your Way Out:
As our motto goes: "Grab 'em, Use 'em, Enjoy 'em". You all know by now this section is here to hopefully, enhance your experience of viewing today's flick. The pictures, the reading material plus the listening extras, all have one common goal: pleasure through learning!
Cheers.
Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
viernes, 16 de junio de 2023
miércoles, 14 de junio de 2023
martes, 13 de junio de 2023
domingo, 11 de junio de 2023
sábado, 10 de junio de 2023
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 039: QUADROPHENIA (1979)
Co-written by Pete Townshend, the movie adaptation of the Who's Quadrophenia marked a definitive departure from the earlier Tommy. To begin with, the script Townshend and three other screenwriters presented during the September 14, 1979 premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, was no musical. The differences didn't end there. Whereas the Who's initial rock-opera movie production had an outlandish, almost psychedelic feel, this project would be governed by a traditional narrative.
In this way, the character of Jimmy - a mid-'60s British mod at the center of the Who's semi-autobiographical 1973 song cycle - was finally given true shape, as was his essential conflict with another group of young London toughs. But the Franc Roddam-directed film tended to play down the album's signature songs in favor of a fleshed-out story, a risky proposition. Townshend was under no illusions about the odds. "Quadrophenia was us writing and singing about something we knew about, and Tommy was fantasy," he said. "There's a greater audience for fantasy."
Then disaster struck this high-concept proposition. Keith Moon, the Who's co-founding drummer, died as the film was being prepared on September 07, 1978 - briefly sending everything into disarray. Moon had been battling an alcohol addiction for some time, and ultimately he overdosed on Heminevrin, a sedative the drummer had been prescribed to deal with the symptoms of acute withdrawal. The drummer had kept his legendary sense of humor, however, until the end. Roddam said that in an early meeting with the Who and their manager Bill Curbishley, Moon said, "I've got a great idea. Why don't we direct this movie together?" Roddam, however, was quick with his reply: "I've got a great idea. Why don't you let me drum on the next Who album?"
In the sad aftermath, there was talk of cancelling the movie. But ultimately, Quadrophenia continued. "Somebody suggested putting "This film is dedicated to the memory of Keith Moon" on Quadrophenia," Townshend said at the time, "and I said, you don't need it. You don't need to say it. Quadrophenia is Keith Moon. They'd make a tombstone out of it. It should definitely not seem to be a tombstone for Keith - and God forbid, it turns out to be a tombstone for the Who."
Moon was cremated on September 13, at Golders Green in London, almost exactly a year before the Quadrophenia premiere. "Get Out and Stay Out," a new song recorded specifically for the film, actually features Moon's replacement in the Who, former Small Faces drummer Kenny Jones.
Johnny Rotten read for the lead role, but the part was given to a then-relative unknown named Phil Daniels after the filmmakers' refused to insure the Sex Pistols frontman. "At the time I could get on a bus, and nobody could even know who I was," said Daniels, who has since become forever associated with this generation-defining role. A cast that included Sting, then at the beginning of his own career in rock, then began reshaping Quadrophenia.
Before, the original album asked listeners to fill in the blanks, as Townshend revisited the mid-'60s scene from which the Who emerged through a main character who seemed to share parts of each of the band members' personalities - thus, the title. This adaptation brought all of Jimmy's adolescent struggles, both from within and without, to the fore.
Most importantly, it pulled no punches, right down to its enigmatic conclusion. "I feel that 99.9 percent of people are losing 99.9 percent of the time," Roddam told Clash in 2009, "and yet all American films are about winning. So I wanted to turn it around and make this about not getting it - not being confident, not being capable, not having sexual experience, not being a good fighter, not being good looking, not being the best dancer, not getting the girl. And I thought those were normal experiences, and I think that's why the film has endured. Because it let people off the hook, they don't feel so bad about themselves."
More than that, Quadrophenia sought to capture a moment in time - and it succeeded, even if a lot of it happened in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. There wasn't much of a script, so having a sense of place was all the more important. That look and feel, so specific and so artfully done, gives Quadrophenia its lasting cache. Part of the advance work for the film, Sting told the Times, was going out with "some actual London mods from the era, drinking with them - and they showed us some dance moves. They were still wearing the clothes."
Upon its release Quadrophenia developed a cult following, mostly through midnight screenings, home-video sales and the occasional TV broadcast. Decades later, Townshend still marveled at its cultural impact. "The film is a part of a continuum of those that strike a typically English and urban visual mood," he said.
In time, Brighton, England - the setting of the script's epic battle between the forward-looking mods and their sworn enemies in the leather wearing, retro rockers - took on a second identity. Long known as a beach resort, it's now become a pilgrimage point for scooter-riding nostalgia buffs.
All of this seems to leave out the Who. But bassist John Entwistle was heavily involved with the soundtrack, overseeing remixing and placement of songs like "5:15" and "Love Reign O'er Me." Careful observers will find some notable changes, including a Moon-focused beginning for "The Punk Meets The Godfather."
More interesting still is spotting the anachronisms involving the rare times the Who is directly referenced in Quadrophenia. They are shown, for instance, performing "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" on the Ready Steady Go! television series. That episode aired, however, in July 1965, a year before Jimmy's adventures in the film take place. Similarly, "My Generation" is featured during a house party, though that song wasn't released until 1965, either. There's a brief glimpse of the Who's repackaged A Quick One / The Who Sell Out double album, and that wasn't released until 1974.
The bulk of the film - at least until its final sequence, when several Who songs play - is dominated by early '60s R&B that was part of the mods' musical diet. As with everything else involved with Quadrophenia, the focus is squarely on the characters, on their story - not the Who. That's given the film, Townshend says, an ageless quality. It allows anyone who wishes to be Jimmy, or indeed to be any of those lost souls from that amazing time when youth culture as we know it became a currency that Hollywood probably could never parody again." Townshend told the Times years later. "Quadrophenia may be the first film that treated the snotty little git hero with the respect he really did not deserve."
But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy...
The Pre-Show:
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And we continue with our 60s-70s comedy sitcoms plus our cartoon delight and last but not least the last remaining chapter of The Batman! You're not gonna miss it, are you?
The Main Feature:
Title: Quadrophenia
Director: Franc Roddam
Cast: Phil Daniels / Leslie Ash / Phillip Davis / Sting
Release Date: 1979
Country: United Kingdom
On Your Way Out:
As our motto goes: "Grab 'em, Use 'em, Enjoy 'em". You all know by now this section is here to hopefully, enhance your experience of viewing today's flick. The pictures, the reading material plus the listening extras, all have one common goal: pleasure through learning!
Cheers.
Shade.
Note: Password for all files: Shade'sVintageRadio
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