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Tuesday, April 27. 2010

Maggie's Farm poster girl Marianne asked me to search out a cut from Harry Belafonte's 1958 album "Harry Belafonte sings the blues." The closest I could find was this, from 1959:

To which I'll add this other chestnut from Harry, with love to Marianne:

We'll forgive the artist for his voice and verve transcending his sometimes errant politics.

Posted by Bruce Kesler in Music at 14:33 | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (0)

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Thank you, dear Bruce, for the trip down Memory Lane. My husband just came in and looked at the pictures and growled, "that guy was always too pretty to work." And he was, indeed. Never did like his politics much, but then, one can always listen to the singing and look at how pretty he was/is and think of the lilies of the field: "they toil not, neither do they spin, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these." We each have our slot to fill in the earth's great puzzle.

Marianne

#1 Marianne Matthews on 2010-04-27 15:38 (Reply)

"...poster girl Marianne..." -admired by many, from afar.

For most artists, in whatever field, (singing, painting, writing, sculpture, ...) I think their personal beliefs are not of any special interest. At best (worst?), the interest in their non-art activity is limited to a generation or so.

Compared to the lasting effect that Great Art has over the centuries, even millennia- political issues are of no consequence.

#2 Ron Snyder on 2010-04-27 19:16 (Reply)

Weird thing, but I've always felt that Belefonte was at his best with simple arrangements. These two examples, while good, are over produced arrangements which don't allow for his unique accent and voicing to really shine.

For example: Shake Senora or the classic Banana Boat Song.

Just my opinion. :>)

#3 Tom Francis on 2010-04-27 19:24 (Reply)

Belafonte could ably handle all varieties of music.

So can I, including singing them all after a few shots, rising to singing all parts from Rodgers & Hammerstein after more than a few shots.
Or, even without, as I sing Mango Man (takeoff on Banana Boat Man) to Gavin (5) when we go to JambaJuice.

#3.1 Bruce Kesler on 2010-04-27 19:29 (Reply)

LOL!! So true. I remember back in the day when we used to sing acapella in the high school auditorium basement. Had great acoustics. Later on, I got on with a group that used to sing in the barracks shower stalls after a round or ten of Seven and Seven. Not a drinker these days, I usually refrain from joining in on karoke and such - my voice wasn't much back then and it ain't much now. I do enjoy close harmony though and participate in a local Barbershop chorus and occasionally as a tenor in a quartet.

Arrangements are a "thing" of mine - in another life time I might become an arranger/composer.

#3.1.1 Tom Francis on 2010-04-27 20:18 (Reply)

Oh, the humiliation!: On a cruise at karaoke I did my world famous Chantilly Lace. NO one recognized the song, and my sons hid behind their chairs, not wanting to be associated with their crowd-decided strange father.

#3.1.1.1 Bruce Kesler on 2010-04-27 20:22 (Reply)

Been there - got the T-shirt.

That's why I stick with playing my guitars. :>)

#3.1.1.1.1 Tom Francis on 2010-04-27 21:20 (Reply)

One of my favorite scenes from "My Best Friend's Wedding", the Julia Roberts movie, is the one where the males in the wedding go off behind some shrubbery with the cylinder that is used to inflate the balloons and inhale the helium, thus raising their voices to impossibly high levels. Then they sing in harmony. It's really very funny, and so is the scene at the rehearsal luncheon when the whole dignified group of wedding participants, including Rupert Everett, begins singing some dopey song or other.

But, most of all, I'd like to hear Bruce sing Mango Man to his son.

Marianne

#4 Marianne Matthews on 2010-04-27 23:13 (Reply)

MM, please stop flattering the New Yorker. I don't think the man can sing worth a lick. Have him take his son to another ballgame. I never believed his BS link awhile back on him considering himself a failure as a parent. He has a beautiful son, and probably a gorgeous wife, which accounts for his son's good looks.
Give him good grades for his parenting skills, but please don't encourage the man to sing. I can here the fingernails on the chalk board now.

#4.1 jappy on 2010-04-28 07:59 (Reply)

jappy dear ... You have no kick coming on family looks. You're handsome, your wife is gorgeous and so are your kids. I don't know about your singing voice, though. You may have been behind the door when voices were passed out. But three out of four is not bad in the asset stakes.

Marianne

#5 Marianne Matthews on 2010-04-28 08:59 (Reply)

They could pull that "close harmony on helium" trick in every scene in every movie and it would still get a laugh out of me. I'm also a complete sucker for any improbable impromptu musical number in the middle of a movie -- such a wish fulfillment. I liked the scene in "My Best Friend's Wedding" (if I'm thinking of the right movie) where the wedding party is gathered at a restaurant and a guest begins to sing "Say a Little Prayer for You." Gradually the stunned guests begin to join in, tentatively, with the doo-wahs, and then the waiter leaps over to the nearby piano and starts to accompany -- in the right key! Great stuff.

So many of us have let our musical skills atrophy from listening to recorded music that, in real life, it's often hard to get a chorus of "Happy Birthday" going. More homemade music, that's what I say! I'll bet a PET scan of my brain would show fireworks whenever it happens.

#6 Texan99 on 2010-04-28 09:16 (Reply)

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Tuesday, April 27. 2010

For Marianne