Come on, The Animals didn't write "House of the Rising Sun." There was another contestant (Zach D'Onofrio) who said he was singing "'Cry Me A River' by Michael Buble." This is crazy talk. "House of the Rising Sun" is an old folk song. The Animals recorded a fine and memorable rendition, but unless you're them you're not singing "House of the Rising Sun" by them... or unless you mean to say I intend this to be heard as an Animals impersonation, which was certainly not the case here. Vox intended to be heard as a female and not as the unusually macho Eric Burdon:
And it wasn't The Animals who dug "House of the Rising Sun" out of the old folk archive. It was Bob Dylan, getting the jump on Dave Van Ronk [correction below]:
In late 1961, Bob Dylan recorded the song for his debut album, released in March 1962. That release had no songwriting credit, but the liner notes indicate that Dylan learned this version of the song from Dave Van Ronk. In an interview for the documentary No Direction Home, Van Ronk said that he was intending to record the song and that Dylan copied his version. Van Ronk recorded it soon thereafter for the album Just Dave Van Ronk.So there's no reason to attribute "House of the Rising Sun" to The Animals. No good reason. The bad reason is, the show tells contestants to introduce the song that way to maximize the chance that its (presumably dumb) audience will have a glimmer of familiarity.
As for "Cry Me a River," it became popular in 1955 because of a recording by Julie London, not that she wrote it. It was written by Arthur Hamilton, who seems to have invented what is now a cliché:
"I had never heard the phrase. I just liked the combination of words... Instead of 'Eat your heart out' or 'I'll get even with you,' it sounded like a good, smart retort to somebody who had hurt your feelings or broken your heart." He was initially concerned that listeners would hear a reference to the Crimea, rather than "..cry me a...", but said that "..sitting down and playing the melody and coming up with lyrics made it a nonissue."The Michael Buble recording was a minor hit in 2009, and many people have recorded the song over the years, including Shirley Bassey, Dinah Washington, Barbra Streisand, Lesley Gore, Joe Cocker, Crystal Gayle, Diana Krall, and Etta James. That is, it's more of a song for a woman to sing. Which is maybe why Zach D'Onofrio didn't make it through (and I don't give a damn about Michael Buble). Aerosmith also recorded "Cry Me a River."
Hey, that reminds me. We have already seen an "American Idol" performer in drag:
It was Steven Tyler, a former judge on the show, doing a faux audition for comic effect.
All the performers are wearing costumes, even the guy in khakis and a checkered shirt. As RuPaul said — and I quoted here a week ago — "We're all born naked the rest is drag." And speaking of RuPaul, his show is really popular these days, so it's not surprising that the struggling "American Idol" wanted to get in on the action. I think Adam Sanders as Ada Vox seems old-fashioned and depressing compared to the drag queens on "RuPaul's Drag Race," but Ada Vox has a good vox, not to my taste, and who knows what TV pseudo-drama they'll crank out of that story? They already did drag as burlesque comedy with Steven Tyler, which, as I said at the time, was a throwback to Milton Berle, who was the biggest star in the (short) history of television, back when Julie London was thrilling us with "Cry Me a River."
I was around back then in the 1950s, when drag was Milton Berle and the ideal of femininity was Julie London:
... Julie London was my father's favorite singer. As a child, I had reason to believe that she was the most compellingly beautiful woman in the world. As I heard her singing, she was whispering. That was the gimmick: Whispering. Listening to it now, I hear how sexy it is intended to be to a man. I'm not sure whether it's completely subtle or a sledgehammer of sex. It's trying to be both in a way that would seem ridiculous or naive today, unless you could convince yourself that it's ironic. But it's not ironic.CORRECTION: I should not give Dave Van Ronk credit for dragging "House of the Rising Sun" out of the archive. He deserves credit for a distinctive arrangement of the song, as a careful reading of the Wikipedia article I've already linked to would make clear. Woody Guthrie recorded the song in 1941, and Lead Belly recorded it in 1944 and 1948. There are also recordings by Glenn Yarbrough, The Weavers, Pete Seeger, and, yes, Andy Griffith in the 1950s. And there's also Miriam Makeba and Joan Baez in 1960. So it was standard for folk singers before Bob Dylan's famous supposed affront to Dave Von Ronk.
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71 comments:
Joan Baez recorded House of the Rising Sun in 1960
I bothers me to no end that people don’t realize that quite a lot of music and almost all pop music is written by someone else (usually Max Martin or Dr Luke) and then performed by someone else.
For example, many people seem to believe that Taylor Swift hates Katy Perry even both of them are singing songs written by Max Martin. So that “diss track” Taylor sang about Katy is really Max Martin dissing...Max Martin. I remember reading a Miley Cyrus article where the *interviewer* asked Miley about “Party in the USA”, “what Snoop Dogg song were you thinking about when you sing, and then a “Snoop Dogg song was on...” and Miley answered honestly, “I don’t know, I didn’t write the song.”
This practice is old, of course, Sinatra performed songs written by others.
It’s part of the reason why Dylan is so revered - he wrote and performed a lot of his own music. Something that doesn’t really happen all that often in music.
It helped that Julie London was not hard to look at.
Sinatra performed songs written by others.
It's fun to think of songs Sinatra might have written. You know, like, to express himself.
"It's fun to think of songs Sinatra might have written. You know, like, to express himself."
Good idea for a "Saturday Night Live" sketch... especially with Joe Piscopo on the show. Maybe it was done.
Denial is a river in Crimea.
I love doobie-doo...
Julie London made a couple of fine points.
https://tinyurl.com/y9vxjj63
As you can see 1
Kudos for the correction, Althouse. Have you considered trying anything in the legal realm?
Julie London. Phwoar.
Imho the two best versions of "Cry me a River" are Peggy Lee's and Linda Ronstadt's versions.
At the nadir of Eric Burdon's career in the early 80's I saw him accompanied by Alan Parsons. In a small club. As his last closing song he announced "I HATE this fucking song. I can never not sing this song. So here it is ladies and gentlemen The House of the fucking Rising Sun." He proceeded to kill it. Long standing ovation for a professional performer singing a song he had grown to hate thst we still loved.
Milton Berle, when in drag, was working in the fine old British tradition of the Pantomime Dame.
"A pantomime dame is a traditional role in British pantomime. It is a continuation of travesti portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag. They are often played either in an extremely camp style, or else by men acting 'butch' in women's clothing."
This post drifts around the concept of cultural appropriation. Is that what you are implying? The Animals rendition of the song is quite good, and so is Ledbelly's. Are you implying that it was improper, deceitful, theft for the Animals to sing that song just because Ledbelly sang it first?
One of the great evils of the Beatles was the idea that you could only sing and play music you, yourself, wrote. The great singers of an earlier generation, like Julie London and Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and Vaughn Monroe, focused on singing and solicited music from song writers. Are we to suppose that produced inferior music? Has no one today ever heard of the concept of a standard song, available to all performers? Would it be illegitimate, cultural theft, if a black sang any songs from Rogers and Hammerstein?
Ann: Facts don’t matter in the age of Fake News.
The House of the Rising Sun is in the public domain. Just like Amazing Grace and Silent Night.
Forget about cultural appropriation. It is all about IP and money.
The family of MLK wouldn’t allow his words to be carved on a stone monument of him unless they got paid. They owned the copyright.
House of the Rising Sun? It has a good beat and you can dance to it.
One of my favorite renditions of The House Of The Rising Sun by Frijid Pink (1970).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t40INnb6DnY
Too young to remember Julie London singing but do remember her from the TV show “Emergency”.
Milton Berle, who was the biggest star in the (short) history of television...
Rumor has it he was also the longest.
I bothers me to no end that people don’t realize that quite a lot of music and almost all pop music is written by someone else (usually Max Martin or Dr Luke) and then performed by someone else.
. . .
It’s part of the reason why Dylan is so revered - he wrote and performed a lot of his own music. Something that doesn’t really happen all that often in music.
It's probably fairly rare for singing talent and song-writing talent combine in one person.
I think Dylan threw a lot of spaghetti on the wall, and some of it stuck.
So on which episode of Idol was Adam Sanders/Ada Vox providing a clear understanding versus being a bit confused?
Dylan and the Beatles were the beginning of the Pop Era where the artists wrote their own songs. Indeed, their first albums still had a smattering of cover versions, and there are people who think the song "Twist and Shout" originated with the Beatles. (Googling "Twist and Shout" brings up first the Beatles performing it on the Ed Sullivan show).
The Rock Idea of performing your own material became a sign of authenticity: the songs were real, not produced in a Song Factory like so many tinkling widgets.
Coinciding with this was the growing primacy of the album, rather than the pop single. This meant that not only would the artist write their own material, but that they could write so much of their own material that they could fill an album at regular intervals.
Which, for many talented artists, was a good thing, and many of those albums became touchstones of eras: Sgt. Pepper, Rumors, Thriller, etc.
Unfortunately, many musicians and singers were better musicians and singers than they were songwriters. Which meant a lot of bad albums. Or the horror that was The Bad Album With The One Good Song.
The Bad Album With The One Good Song often heavily overlapped with the One-Hit Wonder: some artists had one good song in them, and then the well was dry.
Or they had one good song and then made a career out of endlessly rewriting that same song: see AC/DC as an example.
Of course, people don't really mind hearing slight variations of a good song -- that is what a lot of Pop Music in the first place, and why a song that you first hear is inevitably described as "It sounds like __________".
These concepts can actually be seen in the Beatles themselves, in the form of George Harrison.
)to be continued)
(continued)
These concepts can actually be seen in the Beatles themselves, in the form of George Harrison.
He would write the occasional song, because that is what John and Paul did.
He eventually amassed a strong collection of songs that he released in an album that was a touchstone of its era: All Things Must Pass.
Which was produced by Phil Spector, known for his production of Pop Singles often written by songwriters that were not the artist.
And included a song that was a rewrite of a Pop Single: "My Sweet Lord", which was found to be plagiarism of "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons. And "by the Chiffons" I mean a song performed by the Chiffons but written by songwriter Ronald Mack.
A step further, from Wiki:
"Mack's early death reportedly inspired Holland, Dozier and Holland to write the song "Jimmy Mack"..."
Which was a hit when recorded by Martha and the Vandellas.
So: a pop act performs a song written by someone else, where the song is a tribute to someone who wrote a song for someone else.
And to complete the digressions: George Harrison pretty much exhausted his songwriting with "All Things Must Pass."
Within a few years he was that guy who then put out several of the The Bad Albums With The One Good Song.
And, regarding "and why a song that you first hear is inevitably described as "It sounds like __________": many people filled in the blank with 'The Beatles' when describing Electric Light Orchestra.
Where the singer wrote their own Pop Songs. Until he later produced an album by George Harrison. And then joined a band with George Harrison.
A band that also included Bob Dylan.
Related: the Album Era is over. The Pop Single written by professional songwriters is back.
Related: bands that wrote their own songs, but then fought about songwriting credits.
See the overlap in:
(from Wiki):
"Released as the second single from Puff Daddy and the Family's No Way Out album, "I'll Be Missing You" samples The Police's 1983 hit song "Every Breath You Take"...Sting owns 100% of the publishing royalties..."
From the net:
"However, Puff Daddy never asked permission from Sting for the sample, which would have probably allowed him to pay out just 25 percent of the publishing royalties. Instead, due to copyright law, Sting was able to lay claim to 100 percent of them. The track sold seven million copies and won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.
Left out of all this was Summers, who created the defining guitar part during the sessions and is the only member of the Police heard on Puff Daddy’s song. But, as is so often the case, he did not receive a co-writing credit on ‘Every Breath You Take.’ A little more than a year ago, Summers called his lack of compensation for Puff Daddy’s track, “the major rip-off of all time,” adding that “it’s very flattering. I guess everybody likes it…Stewart [Copeland]’s not on it. Sting’s not on it. I’d be walking round Tower Records, and the f—ing thing would be playing over and over."
So the guitarist writes a riff that is integral to the song, but doesn't get any songwriting credit.
The riff is sampled, and the royalties go to the guy who didn't write the riff.
My Sweet Lord.
The Germans have a word for this.
It was written as a woman's song in the 19th century, and some of the lyrics make more sense when a woman sings it:
The sons of saintly women come
To kiss the cross of shame.
Before them in another time
Their worthy fathers came.
Katie Lee - God rest her passionate and honest soul - does a more extensive version, stitching her album Love's Little Sisters together with it. Basically whore songs of the southwest, its working title was Katie Lee Goes A-whoring. She was a great lady; never met her like; "many a man lives a burden to the earth he walks upon," but the earth was lightened by her voice and step.
Re: Cry me a River. Liam Payne - I think it was him - auditioned with that on Britain's X-Factor. Pre-Boy Band. Michael Buble recorded it in 2009. Payne sang it in 2010. So maybe Buble can be credited with resurrecting it, but I'd say Paybe put it in front of the teen set.
(My daughter still insists she's going to marry Harry Styles, FWIW)
"It's fun to think of songs Sinatra might have written. You know, like, to express himself."
Good idea for a "Saturday Night Live" sketch... especially with Joe Piscopo on the show. Maybe it was done."
From the internet:
These are the songs that bear official credit to Sinatra as co-songwriter or lyricist, that Sinatra recorded in studio:
I'm A Fool To Want You (with Jack Wolfe and Joel Herron, 1951)
Mistletoe and Holly (with Dok Stanford and Hank Sanicola, 1957)
Mr Success (with Ed Greines and Hank Sanicola, 1958)
Peachtree Street (with Jimmy Saunders and Leni Mason, 1950)*
Sheila (with Chris Hayward and Bob Staver, 1949)
Take My Love (with Jack Wolfe and Joel Herron, 1950, an adaption from a theme from 3rd Symphony by Johannes Brahms)
This Love Of Mine (with Sol Parker and Hank Sanicola, 1941)
And:
"Strangers in the Night."
"... This song was originally written by Ivo Robic for a music festival in Split, Croatia; Robic later recorded versions of it in Croatian ("Stranci u Noci") and in German ("Fremde in der Nacht"). English lyrics about love at first sight were written by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder...
BUT:
"Sinatra ad-libbed the "Dooby dooby doo" closing scat. Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created the cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, said that he got the inspiration to name his character from Sinatra's ad-lib."
Dooby Dooby Doo.
Shattered, Shoo Bee.
Gitchee gitchee goo (means that I love you)
Da Doo Ron Ron
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
Yeah Yeah Yeah!
and, from Wiki:
"Tra-la-la is a song composed by George and Ira Gershwin for the 1922 Broadway show For Goodness' Sake.[1] However, it was never performed in the show. It was later performed in the 1951 American film An American in Paris by Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant. In An American in Paris, it was listed as Tra-la-la (This Time It's Really Love)."
Which was (sort of) covered by The Banana Splits:
Tra la la, tra la la, la
Tra la la, tra la la, la
Tra la la, tra la la, la
Tra la la, tra la la, la
One banana, two banana, three banana, four
All bananas make a split, so do many more
Over hill and highway, the banana buggies go
Come along to bring you the banana splits show
The Germans have a word for this.
Simulacra of simulacra: such is the reality of pop culture to which we must attend.
Truth be told. He's an ugly woman, and that was a terrible rendition.
When did it become entertaining to pluck someone from the short bus, and put them on stage??
The Animals' release gave songwriting credit to the organist, Alan Price, who earned the biggest chunk of royalties off the hit. This did not endear him with the other members of the band. The organ part does rock.
Is it wrong to call Adam Sanders a drama queen?
"Does Crimea have a river? If so, is it as condescending as it sounds?"
I apologize for my above comments not incorporating the concept of Drag into them.
Because it seems like anything to be currently discussed in Pop Culture must have a tangent involving men dressing as women.
So, how about:
Is a man dressing as a woman akin to a singer performing someone else's song?
Drag = Cover Version.
The Germans have a word for this.
My church does cross dressing for Easter.
"This post drifts around the concept of cultural appropriation. Is that what you are implying? The Animals rendition of the song is quite good, and so is Ledbelly's. Are you implying that it was improper, deceitful, theft for the Animals to sing that song just because Ledbelly sang it first?"
Huh? First of all, it's Leadbelly. And I didn't even say Leadbelly sang it first. The oldest recording cited in the linked Wikipedia article is by Woody Guthrie, 3 years before Leadbelly.
Second, I never said that The Animals or anyone else who sang the traditional folksong (whose writer is unknown) was cheating or misattributing or appropriating. All I said was that it's annoying when a song on "American Idol" is introduce as being "by" someone who happened to record it, especially when they were not first. If you were playing The Animals' version, it would make sense to saying here is "House of the Rising Sun," by The Animals. But if you're singing a song yourself, it's not X by Y unless Y wrote X.
Chas Chandler is playing the bass in the Animals video. He went on to become Jimi Hendrix's manager.
Althouse wrote:
The oldest recording cited in the linked Wikipedia article is by Woody Guthrie, 3 years before Leadbelly.
Wikipedia cites two recordings prior to Woody Guthrie's 1941 version. "The oldest known recording of the song, under the title "Rising Sun Blues", is by Appalachian artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster, who recorded it for Vocalion Records on September 6, 1933.[6][11] Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Roy Acuff, an "early-day friend and apprentice" of Ashley's, learned it from him and recorded it as "Rising Sun" on November 3, 1938.[6][11]."
I'm older than you so I'm going to kind of pull rank on you with the following drivel.
The Milton Berle Show was actually called Texaco Star Theatre. "We are the men of Texaco we serve from Maine to Mexico" etc.
You mentioned Julie London's schtick. But without that schtick she wasn't much of a singer. Probably sold a lot of albums based on the picture on the album cover.
I never heard of Arthur Hamilton. But I doubt there is another song with the word "plebeian" in the lyric. "Told me love was too plebeian, told me you were through with me and"....etc. Michael Jackson never wrote anything like that.
You mentioned Dinah Washington who was a terrific singer and more or less a contemporary of Billie Holliday. She could sing circles around Billie Holliday yet many more young people are aware of Holliday. She was also married to Dick Night Train Lane of the Detroit Lions. Maybe the best sports nickname ever.
Okay, that's enough.
Bluesman Josh White played the quintessential version of the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Ueo7r2nbA
Josh White Jr. also gave us great versions,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXi3ISdxsI0
I got to hear Rambling Jack Elliot sing HOTRS (that could be a Porsche vanity plate) a couple times at my In-Laws shop in Oakland back in the early 1990's when they sponsored him while he was down and out living in a motor home with his dying alcoholic wife. He rambled plenty about Woody, Arlo and Bob. This was before house concerts became a thing. He treated these informal events (about 100 people) like he was playing in Carnivore Hall, a real pro.
The British Invasion was all about cultural appropriation... and the great unknown legends they copied were grateful for the notice and flood of paying gigs in response to the white boys who worshiped them.
What"s up with all these Yankees culturally appropriating folk and blues songs? ;-)
All roads lead to Dylan.
Right Ann. And you probably don't believe that Whitney Houston wrote 'I Will Always Love You' either?
One reason I believe it is that Hell is such an implausible notion
Who says Althouse doesn't troll her readers?
It takes quite a bit of talent to write things interesting enough to hold an audience yet not complete enough that they feel comfortable there is something they must stop by to add.
He said he got hateful messages through social media. I know some people are mean just for the sake of being mean, but I'm surprised that someone who got cut as a contestant that early in the process got enough attention to get any social media comments at all.
Dylan, Dylan , Dylan. Doesn't anybody love Joan Baez anymore?
"Wikipedia cites two recordings prior to Woody Guthrie's 1941 version. "The oldest known recording of the song, under the title "Rising Sun Blues", is by Appalachian artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster, who recorded it for Vocalion Records on September 6, 1933.[6][11] Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Roy Acuff, an "early-day friend and apprentice" of Ashley's, learned it from him and recorded it as "Rising Sun" on November 3, 1938.[6][11].""
I shouldn't have written "oldest known recording of the song," but something more like oldest record released on a commercial record label. Those older recordings are Lomax recordings -- he went around collecting songs from musicians who weren't putting out records.
"Dylan, Dylan , Dylan. Doesn't anybody love Joan Baez anymore?"
She's kind of annoying.
Another long road that leads to Dylan
This is right in my wheelhouse, so much to comment on!
So, re: the Animals / Dylan / Van Ronk "Rising Son" -- I'm not an expert on this song in the least, but to my ear the Animals are singing the version that is most common today, and spot-checking pre-Dylan versions linked above shows they are NOT singing the same tune the Animals did. If you spend much time in the world of traditional music, alternate tunes for a song are dead common -- it's completely natural when you don't have recordings and most people don't read sheet music, and re-matching lyric and tune remains common today in the world of folk music.
So it's entirely possible that one of Animals / Dylan / Van Ronk was responsible for the version of the song commonly sung today. Dunno which one, and of course they might have been copying someone else who wasn't recorded. That's the way it goes.
Second: I've long wondered how much copyright law has to do with people wanting to record albums of their own songs. VERY approximately, the way the law works is you get twice as much money for a recording if you made the recording and have the songwriting credit. It is absolutely appropriate for songwriters to get royalties too, but it does seem like it would be a significant incentive to write your own stuff.
You see a pattern a lot in the (modern) folk music world where people will record a couple of great albums of almost all traditional material, then for an album or two there are a few original songs, and finally start recording mostly their own songs. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are great performers and maybe even reasonably good songwriters simply cannot churn out an album's worth of songs every year. I think of it as Great Big Sea Syndrome, though I'm sure they weren't the first and they're definitely not the last. As a group, they could reliably write one or two great original songs each album. When the rest of the songs were traditional or covers, that worked really, really well. When the rest of the songs were original, it was a disaster.
Another facet of this: a lot of musicians whose songwriting talents are spectacular will still gladly do covers or traditional material. They are just a lot less likely to put such stuff on studio albums. eg Queen playing Jailhouse Rock -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1j-VjNZYp0 -- or Richard Thompson singing "Oops I Did It Again" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WGsMplGxU
Great post, Althouse. Well done.
The Animals do have the distinct honor of the only artist to have a #1 hit with the song, so there is that. There is certainly the argument that the song belongs, as such as a song can belong to anyone, to whichever artist is most closely associated with it. Bob Dylan wrote and recorded "All Along the Watchtower." That's a Jimi Hendrix song as far as most casual fans are concerned. Actually, it is a Jimi Hendrix song as far as I am concerned as it is so superior to Dylan's version as to eclipse it completely.
"The First Cut Is The Deepest" is an interesting exercise in this. Cat Stevens wrote it and his version is perfectly decent, P.P. Arnold was the first to release it and had the first hit version, Keith Hampshire had the first #1 version (albeit in Canada), Rod Stewart had the iconic version that had the most success in the USA, and then Sheryl Crow had even more success with the song than Rod. Who does this song belong to? (I prefer the Sheryl Crow version myself.)
Following up on Simon Kenton's comment, HOTRS is originally a song from the prostitute's view, which I find much more powerful. The Animals may be the first to change the perspective. In that sense, I guess it is their song! They can have it.
I'm not sure why artists became reluctant to sing from another gender's perspective. It seems like a degeneration of the craft, as if the singer is singing about himself/herself, rather than just telling a story.
Africans like buzztones, as do African-Americans. This means they respond to voices like James Brown and Wilson Pickett, or the great gospel singer Julius Cheeks; not to Maria Callas and Joan Baez. Joan Baez has little to no overtones riding on her clear, clean tones. She has no "soul."
When The Beatles broke in the US with I Want To Hold Your Hand, Atlanta fans wanted to keep the song as number 1 on the call-in 'Top 5 at 5' request line for favorite song on WQXI played at 5:00 PM (natch) on Patrick "Aloysius" Hughes' afternoon drive show.
Southern Bell would say that their lines were most congested just before 5.
Anyway, it was with pride and purpose that the kids in Atlanta kept I Want To Hold Your Hand for, if I'm not mistaken, one year.
The song which finally replaced it. Why, House Of The Rising Son by The Animals.
Other than being a great song (and was I surprised to see little way-too-young Eric Burdon belting out such aged truths) that is one reason I will never forget HOTRS.
PS. Julie London...lounging in the back of a limousine smouldering through the Marlboro jingle when it was a women's cigarette.
Robert Johnson wrote almost all the songs he performed in his great recording sessions in 1937, a year or so before he was murdered.
When John Lennon and Paul McCartney began writing and performing their own material, this was an innovation that profoundly shook up the pop music world. The ability to write sons was why Brian Jones lost power within the Rolling Stones to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Before Jagger-Richards started writing hit songs, Jones had been the leader of the band, commonly getting more money than the rest of them (whether they liked this or not). After Jagger and Richards took power and Brian Jones became a pretty boy appendage, his only way of drawing attention to himself was to play oddball instruments like dulcimer and sitar, contributions marveled at by young fans.
Just as a footnote, the Beatles always listed the songwriting credit as Lennon-McCartney. After John Lennon's death, because of Paul's egotism, this was altered
to McCartney-Lennon.
Elvis Presley didn't write any of the songs he sang, unless as some novelty in his later years I missed.
the unusually macho Eric Burdon
Having nothing against Eric Burdon, you seriously find him unusually macho? Is the trouble with the definition of unusually or of macho? Are you relying on evidence not found in the video clip?
By the way I'm thinking that was dub/lip sync in the clip. He did not look like he was putting his back into it. And the walking around the stage deal was kind of funny, with the stringed instrument players following him around like ducklings. But I do love that song.
In music, I understand the real difficulty, the highest art or science, is in the composition of the music as opposed to the lyrics.
Julie London was married to Bobby Troup, the guy who wrote Route 66, a song which I cannot even imagine her singing.
The Animals version has been a favorite of mine since I was little - in no small part because of the solo, played, coincidentally, on a Vox (Continental Organ). The sound of any of those transistor organs (Vox, Farfisa, Doric) is best in small doses, but anyone who has helped carry a Hammond B3 up a flight of stairs will understand why they were popular. And the Vox, with the reverse black/white keys, was a really cool looking instrument. Beatle fans here will remember Lennon playing one on I'm Down at Shea.
I misread that, I thought it was going to be Adam Sandler.
The Coen brothers film "Inside Llewyn Davis" was based on Dave Van Ronk.
Prof. Althouse, you should listen to this podcast. It's done by a philosopher and is about the phenomena of covering songs. It taught me the backstory of the song "Killing Me Softly" which I was always curious about.
https://hiphination.org/episodes/s2-episode-5-cover-me-softly-feb-27th-2018/
Within a band the songwriting credits can become a matter of serious and bitter dispute -- as that's where the real money is. The Doors gave equal credit to the entire band, just as, years later, did Joy Division. The Rolling Stones were known to perhaps rip some collaborators off. Certainly Ry Cooder openly accused them of that, as he played with them a great deal during that period when they could not tour because of pending drug cases and Brian Jones being more or less a non-factor because of alcohol etc. He claimed they taped him playing all kinds of rhythm guitar which they later stole.
Also, Mick Taylor received a single co-songwriting credit on "Exile On Main Street," when he supposedly should have been given 4 or 5 -- or more. He brooded about this until he finally left the band. (Marianne Faithfull got credit for the lyrics of "Sister Morphine," a song on the album STICKY FINGERS, a record that has continued to sell every year. In her well-written, intelligent memoir Faithfull is thankful for this, saying this was her only income during some bad, low years.)
I tend to give Jagger and Richards a little bit of a break in that they found themselves bankrupt in 1968, owing a huge tax bill and lawyers' fees, when they still could not tour, due to the chicanery of manager Allen Klein. And who knew at that time if their popularity would endure? Pop music stars tend in general to quickly disappear. They were in very poor shape until they fired Brian Jones, hired Mick Taylor as their new guitar-player, and went on tour in 1969.
@dbzdak - Thanks for sharing the link to that podcast. I hadn't come across it before; very interesting!
dbzdak said...
Prof. Althouse, you should listen to this podcast. It's done by a philosopher and is about the phenomena of covering songs. It taught me the backstory of the song "Killing Me Softly" which I was always curious about.
https://hiphination.org/episodes/s2-episode-5-cover-me-softly-feb-27th-2018/
Julie London was Dixie! And she was married to a Dr at Rampart!
Oh man...
...best name ever- Randolph Mantooth
I did my fellowship at Rampart (Harbor-UCLA) and ended up with a bit part in the pilot of Emergency. Fun times.
Althouse wrote:
I shouldn't have written "oldest known recording of the song," but something more like oldest record released on a commercial record label. Those older recordings are Lomax recordings -- he went around collecting songs from musicians who weren't putting out records.
No, those were not Lomax recordings; they were both commercial releases on the Vocalion label, a subsidiary of Decca Records.
Meh, referring to the most well known version is fine by me, unless you’re digging deeper into song analysis. Then you probably want other versions at hand to figure out how you might interpret it.
Some performing artists get to a point where they have a few beloved songs in their heads since childhood, and enough talent and experience to put their own style to them. Maybe synthesize something memorable. Like poets, most aspiring musicians have aspirations bigger than their understanding and experience (better to use these competitions as auditions to recognize raw talent or make money).
Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, The Beatles have less resonance for me than some actual Gospel, Blues, Jazz and Big Band, some actual deep woods folk, country, bluegrass, and some actual Baroque and Renaissance composition. That’s probably me (hippies!)
Do we really need to know who wrote Greensleeves?
"This post drifts around the concept of cultural appropriation."
Of course kiss-ass libs always assume that everything white rockers, or white artists in general, do is stolen from Blacks, either specific Black persons, or from Black culture, or both at the same time.
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