Eric Clapton and Company: "Cream" ("Sunshine of Your Love" and "Strange Brew" )

"Cream" was a rock-blues and psychedelic band that featured celebrated acoustic guitarist Eric Clapton (formerly of "The Blues Breakers" and "The Yard-birds"), drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce.  They were one the first "super-groups of the rock and roll era. 

Clapton, by the way, is the only performer in the Rock and Roll Fame of Fame to be inducted three separate times; for his tenure with "The Yard-birds", "Cream" and as a solo artist.  

 

The group's first major album was 1967's "Disraeli Gears".  It was recorded at Atlantic Records studios in New York City in May 1967 and released in November of that year.  It reached #5 in the British charts for top-selling albums and went to #4 in the USA .   Next to the release of The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" album, it is probably the most influential rock album for that year.     Cream released only four albums but set the standard for the fusion of blues and psychedelic rock for years to come. Their work has sold an total of 70 million albums.

I had thought that the title of the album was poking a bit of fun at Victorian-era England and the confidence conservatives of that day had in industrialization. The truth is more prosaic and humorous:

"The title of the album is based on a malapropism. Eric Clapton had been thinking of buying a racing bicycle and was discussing it with Ginger Baker, when a roadie named Mick Turner commented, "it's got them Disraeli Gears", meaning to say "derailleur gears," but instead alluding to 19th-century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. The band thought this was hilarious, and decided that it should be the title of their next album."--Wikipedia

  The iconic album cover was by an Australian artist named Mike Stanley.   

    This is the best live version of the second trac and biggest hit on this album, Sunshine of Your Love". I don't think it really gets much more "Sixties" in music than this!

Oh, and this song has covered a few times.  The Japanese band  Gastunk released a cover as a single in 1988;  the English sludge band  Fudge Tunnel recorded it, too.  (Anybody ever seen a "sludge band?)  Other groups and performers to cover the song include Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello and The Police, Spanky Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne, Carlos Santana and the most famous psychedelic rocker of all time........Trini Lopez!!!

        . 

Big Retro Sound! Fabienne Delsol & The Bristols - "He'll Never Come Back"

The Bristols were Liam Watson, Fabienne DelSol, Owen Thomas, Cyril Roy, Johnny Maben and Andrew Ralph Goldeman. Their music faithfully reproduced the 60’s garage rock sound. During their career they issued two lps as well as three singles on Damaged Goods Records in the mid-to-late 90’s. (from FMsound website)

From Wikipedia: Fabienne Delsol is a French singer, who performs primarily in English. Influenced by the 1960s, her music is a mix of UK garage, Pop, and Psychedelic. She has released two solo albums.

The Bristols disbanded in 2003. The music lives on.

A bit more info available here:
http://detailedtwang.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducingthe-now-defunct-bristols.html

Don Partridge, "One Man Band" - Breakfast On Pluto (1969)

"Breakfest on Pluto" was a hit song in the U.K. for the King of the Buskers (street musicians), Don Partridge. (picture by Harry Metcalfe, 1966).



I first heard this wonderful song on the soundtrack to the award-winning 2005 Irish movie of the same name, directed by Neil Jordan, who also directed the well-received film "The Crying Game" (1993) and also did a fine adaptation of Graham Greene's 1940's wartime love triangle novel, "The End of the Affair" (1997).


Here's some background on Partridge, who sadly died last year, from the indispensible Internet source "Wikipedia":


"Donald Eric Partridge (27 October 1941 – 21 September 2010)[2][3] was an English singer and songwriter, known as the "king of the buskers".[4] He performed from the early 1960s as a busker and one-man band, and achieved unexpected commercial success in the UK in the late 1960s with the songs "Rosie" and "Blue Eyes".

"Don Partridge was born in Bournemouth, England. By his own account, he left home at age 15 and became a burglar, before working at some 45 different jobs.[5] By the early 1960s, inspired by American singer Jesse Fuller,[6] he travelled around Europe as a solo entertainer on street corners, initially simply singing songs with a guitar. However, he found that he gained more attention by performing as a one-man band, playing guitar, kazoo or harmonica, bass drum and cymbal at the same time.[5][6]

"Playing by that time mainly in London, Partridge performed traditional English and American folk songs as well as his own compositions. In 1964, he and his friend, guitarist Alan Young, were described in the Evening Standard as the first young street musicians to be seen in London since the second world war. "


My thanks to Multiply friend Aaran Ardvark for giving me background on this artist, whose work I only barely stratched the surface of prior to his own blog on Mr. Partridge.

The Wallflowers - "I'm looking Through You" and "One Headlight"

A cover by the Wallflowers from one of the most popular of the Beatles' tunes, off their "Revolver" LP.

(from Wikipedia) "The Wallflowers are a rock band from Los Angeles, California, fronted by Jakob Dylan. Formed in 1989 and originally known as The Apples, the ensemble has gone through numerous personnel changes with Dylan the only constant.

"They have released five studio albums, one compilation album and have had various songs on television and movie soundtracks. They have won two Grammy awards for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Rock Song for their song "One Headlight" in 1998."




The clips here are from the 2000 film, "Billy Elliot". The film is about a working-class boy who aspires to be a ballet dancer while his family is torn and his town beset by an miner's strike in northern England. The "One Headlight" official video is in the comments section below.

Music from "Anything Goes"

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Music
Genre:	Broadway & Vocalists
Artist:	Cole Porter

Cole Porter (1891-1964) wrote both music and lyrics to some of the most popular tunes of mid-century America and whose musicals, such as "Anything Goes", are still being revived on "Broadway" long after most others have bit the dust. It would be impossible to do one blog or a series them on all the great songs he created at the piano in a professional career that spanned 40 years. So I'm just going to take some hits from this one show.
Here are a few of the other songs he did: "Begin the Beguine", "Night and Day", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Love for Sale", "True Love", "Let's Misbehave", "In the Still of the Night", "At Long Last Love", "I Get A Kick Out of You", "Don't Fence Me In", et al.




Porter here does the title tune from his 1934 hit Broadway show:


Some Wikipedia Biography: "Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike most successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote both the lyrics and the music for his songs.

After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 30s, but in 1947 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate."



Porter's life did not make for honest easy story-telling in 1945, when Cary Grant and Alexis Smith stared in the first bio film "Night and Day". For one thing Porter much preferred the intimate company of men to that of women. Most people who knew something of Porter's private life considered the film a bit of a farce in part from that omission. He did marry a Kentucky heiress named Linda Lee Thomas around 1920 and they stayed married until her death in 1954. It is generally considered that this was a marriage more of conviviality than conjugal however and Porter continued seeing men, especially in his days in Hollywood working on films starring the likes of Fred Astaire and Judy Garland.


Then there also was the question of if, as he said in some interviews, he was a member of the French Foreign Legion in 1917. (Porter's first Broadway musical, "See America First", had also debut that year.) Biographers dispute what exactly he did in France , although it is safe to say he likely joined an American-organized relief unit delivering supplies to Allied soldiers and may well have entertained troops on a portable piano at hospitals or near the front. The 1945 film errs on the side of Porter as a solider. A more recent film "De-Lovely", with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, fore-goes the early life of Porter and picks up where he is pianist among Paris expatriate swells in the Twenties.

Porter's music, culled in places like Paris, Venice, London, combined Old World class with New world energy, as one critic noted. There is a sense that a form of popular songwriting is reaching its apex with so many of his works. He became a byword for sophistication in a medium--the Broadway Musical---that sorely needed some Continental polish and some American Middle-West vigor.

Here's the man himself, singing his most famous tune, "You're the Top" from the 1934 show, "Anything Goes". According to Bob Toomey on You Tube, "Porter composed it during a cruise on Germany's Rhine River. He asked his fellow passengers to tell him what they considered important in their lives, or important in general, and Porter worked them into the lyric."

Porter names 37 different people and places in this one, all quite deftly mixing up the pop zeitgeist.




The finale of "Anything Goes" is Blow, Gabriel, Blow". Here it is sung by Sutton Foster and the cast of the 2010 Broadway Musical revival. Ms. Sutton won a Tony for her performance as Reno Sweeney.

Forty Years of the Greatest Movies--Iggy Pop " The Passenger"

The Great Escape
Sunset Boulevard
(Repeated)
The Prince and the Pauper
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Flying Leathernecks
Pursued
Black Angel
Pickup on South Street
Fallen Angel
Giant
From Here to Eternity
His Girl Friday
Pursued
Lawrence of Arabia
The Great Escape
Big Jake
Rififi "this is the movie of the bleeding guy driving with the kid in the backseat. It's a French film noir and it's awesome."--CommanderPutney
Giant
Fallen Angel
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Prince and the Pauper
From Here to Eternity
The Bad and the Beautiful
Pickup on South Street
Duel in the Sun
Top Hat
Stalag 17
Casablanca
Singin' In the Rain
Fallen Angel
The Wild Bunch
It Happened One Night
Black Angel
His Girl Friday
Murder My Sweet
Trouble In Paradise
Duel in the Sun
The Shop Around the Corner
Murder My Sweet
Pursued
Top Hat
From Here to Eternity
It Happened One Night
My Man Godfrey
The Fighting Seabees
Casablanca
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Some Like It Hot
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Stalag 17
Citizen Kane
Destry Rides Again
Citizen Kane
Singin' In the Rain
Citizen Kane
Destry Rides Again
Duel in the Sun
The Thin Man
Force of Evil
Rio Bravo
Lawrence of Arabia
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Take Me Out To the Ballgame
The Searchers
In the Navy
East of Eden
Robin and the Seven Hoods
The High and Mighty
In Old California
Giant
The Godfather
There's No Business Like Show Business
Top Hat
Rio Bravo
The Searchers

Not all great movies perhaps but some of the best the studio system ever made plus some great work by maverick directors like Sir David Lean, Sam Peckinpah and Jules Dassin. This will be provide a little finish off to the movie blogs I've done this month. Goodbye August. See you next year, and bring cooler weather.

A collage of film clips of some of the the best work by American and foreign film makers from 1930 to 1970, approx. Music by Igggy Pop and the Stooges. With thanks to Commander Putney of You Tube for the video and Aaran Aardvark for the inspiration.

One O'Clock Jump - Count Basie (1943)

This tune is one of the Big Band standards for its era. Released in the Summer of 1937, it became the signature tune for William "Count" Basie and his band, the purveyors of a new jazz sound that came out of the heartland metropolis of Kansas City, Missouri.

Basie (1904-1984) was already a big local success in night clubs and local radio shows when he was discovered via a late night program by a VIP listener, John Hammond, a producer for Benny Goodman and many other swing greats.

The Basie Band (which originally featured featured jazz legends like Lester Young on tenor sax and Buck Clayton on trumpet) proved popular enough to break out early and stay one of the top bands of the era.

One of Basie's earliest piano teachers was none other than the great "Mayor of Harlem" and piano virtuoso, Fats Waller.

Despite the loss of big band popularity in the early fifties, Count Basie continued to tour with his band and new members right in the 1980's. He recorded and performed with legends like Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra in bands and smaller groups in Hollywood, New York and Las Vegas.

This clip is from a wartime B-picture from 1943 called "Reveille With Beverly" featuring future MGM star Ann Miller as the "disc jockey."

Ball of Confusion--The Temptations

Says it like it was, and still tells it much like it is.

The Temptations as a group had their own ball of confusion over personnel changes and artistic disputes, but this is one of their greatest hits with most of the original group on hand. This song was released in 1970 and hit #3 on the US Billboard Charts and #2 on the R&B charts that same year.

"From Wikipedia: Lead vocals by Dennis Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, and Melvin Franklin
Background vocals by Dennis Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, Melvin Franklin, and Otis Williams
Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
Produced by Norman Whitfield.

David Gilmour (Shakespeare's Sonnet 18)

The former "Pink Floyd" band-mate, recording producer, solo artist and philanthropist performs one of Shakespeare's best-loved sonnets.

"The Movie Star"-- Tina Louise Birthday Tribute

Born on February 11 in New York City as Tina Blacker, this actress was one of the earliest sex symbols I remember discovering on television as a youngster, courtesy of the kid-popular show "Gilligan's Island".

Her role as "Ginger Grant, movie star" stranded on an island for three seasons with six other disparate characters (including the incomparable Jim Backus, as reprobate capitalist Thurston Howell) made her a household name for a time. It did not help her main career goal as a serious actress, but then female actors usually have a narrow window to establish themselves and the people who ran the studios decided Tina was a better commodity for them in sexy lightweight fare of which "Gilligan" was perhaps the lightest on record.

Accepted into Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio in New York as a younger thespian, she worked in several films with outstanding directors like Anthony Mann, Robert Altman, Roberto Rossolini, Michael Curtiz and Richard Brooks. She also did some outstanding small roles in television films showing a dramatic side they hinted at what kind of career she might have had given the right break.

But that as it may, I've always had a fondness for Tina, not just for the fact that she is beautiful (she was voted the second most beautiful woman in television history a few years back according to TV Guide) but also for the confidence she brought to her appearances on talk shows and her determination not to let Ginger Grant define who she was.

I discovered last year that she continues to live in Manhattan and volunteers as a reading teacher to young children. She also has written a memoir and at least one best-selling children's books (and looks good for a lady of a certain age.)

Anyway, here Ms. Louise is in her career salad days, in a nice tribute put together from a You Tube subscriber. (Which also features
a classic R&B song from the Isley Brothers.)

Sahara Hotnights - Keep Callin My Baby

Sahara Hot Nights performs one of their songs from the 2004 album, "Kiss and Tell", my favorite on the album.

This indie-rock band is a major attraction in Europe and their native Sweden. Their fifth album was released last year.

From Wikipedia: "Sahara Hotnights' sound has been described as a mix between Blondie, The Ramones, and Nirvana. Although their latest work has a more pop sound to it, Sahara Hotnights have always been influenced by classic rock and punk bands. When the Kiss & Tell album was released, many accustomed to the unforgiving stance of Jennie Bomb balked at their attempt to make an album that was dance crafty. However, Maria Andersson, described the Jennie Bomb album as having a "slick sound to the rock songs, while Kiss and Tell has a raw sound to the pop songs."



Members
Maria Andersson
Josephine Forsman
Jennie Asplund
Johanna Asplund

The name comes from a race horse one of the band members bet on while touring in Australia.

The Beatles: "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"

I wanted to invest an upcoming sad anniversary for myself and other Beatles fans with a bit of what made John Lennon and his "mates" special. This is one of my favorites of their early work.

Many of us have been at a similar awkward place the singer of this tune is talking about, but this hope and infectious spirit Lennon and McCartney wrote into their music still comes through in the vibrant cords and seemingly effortless lyrical style.

From Wikipedia:

"I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" was written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney. It was released on the album "Beatles for Sale" in the United Kingdom in 1964. In the United States, Capitol released the song on the Beatles VI album and also as the B-side of the single "Eight Days a Week".

"The single peaked at number one in the United States; it was not released in the United Kingdom. "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" charted as a B-side, reaching number thirty-nine on Billboard."

Rimsky-Korsakov-"Sheherazade" (1888) -Gergiev-Kirov orchestra

St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Sergey Levitin as conductor (2003).




Rimsky-Korsakov's soaring composition was inspired by a Tales from the Arabian Nights, specifically a tale of the wicked Sultan Schariar who began marrying,bedding and beheading brides after he became convinced all women were faithless. Sheherazade volunteered to marry the king ,against all logic, but, with one major difference from her unfortunate predessors:


"[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."--Translated from "The Tales" by Sir Richard F. Burton


Only after studying many stories, sciences and histories could she tell spellbinding stories to the sultan and keep him entranced night after night, waiting to hear more.

Finally, the Sultan's heart melted and he fell in love with this enchanting story-teller, ending the reign of terror.



This is the Sixth and final movement of the symphony, one of the most beautiful romantic pieces of its time, and a favorite of mine from the first time I heard it a long time ago. It harkens to me of a beautiful technicolor Arabia of the imagination.

Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (Live Abbey Road 2009)

The Seattle-based "Fleet Foxes" band has some great harmonies and a unique sound. This is off their 2008 album. The song Mykonos also comes from the soundtrack of the recent Todd Philips/Robert Downey film, "Due Date".


From Wikipedia: "At the end of 2008, Fleet Foxes was rated album of the year by Billboard's Critic's Choice and in Metacritic's end of year best album round-up it appeared in 17 lists, topping six of them.[23][24] Furthermore, it had sold over 210,000 copies in North America and over 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom, making it the first gold certificate record for UK label Bella Union.[25] Their growing profile enabled the band to make televised appearances, playing on Vincent Moon's "La Blogotheque" in December 2008 and on Saturday Night Live the following January.[26] In 2009, they toured in Europe to favorable reviews; Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant said their show in Paradiso induced goosebumps.[27] Throughout 2008-9 the band played globally ending the tour in September with a final European leg. Fleet Foxes played at the Bridge School Benefit curated by Neil Young on October 24 and 25, 2009 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. This is the second time they supported Young after a summer bill in Hyde Park, London."
[edit]

Blues At Its Finest: Bessie Smith-"Nobody knows you when you're down and out"

Bessie Smith (1894-1937) is called "The Empress of the Blues" for many good reasons.


She voice epitomized the blues and its facility to encompass songs of pain and regret. She also could celebrate the joys of pure passion as in tunes like "I'm Wild About That Thing" and "Do Your Duty"

She started out as a street singer in Chattanooga Tennessee at age 12 and in the 1920's her songs sold in the hundreds of thousands.
Here's some info on Ms. Smith's career from The New York State University Women's Biography website:

"The major breakthrough for Bessie, and for the recording industry, came in 1923. Mamie Smith in 1920 had recorded "Crazy Blues" in 1920, which sold so well (against all expectations) that Columbia set up a separate division for "race" records. Frank Walker, in charge of the division, had been so impressed years earlier by Bessie’s singing, that he sent the pianist Clarence Williams to bring her to New York .As she arrived, Columbia was on the verge of bankruptcy. Her debut record, "Downhearted Blues" and "Gulf Coast Blues" , sold 780,000 copies in the six months after she recorded the pieces, and helped save Columbia. Over the years she made 160 recordings. At that stage Bessie was receiving an outright $125 per recording; at her height a few years later, she was receiving $2,000/week, and owned her own travelling railway car. During the following ten years she was the foremost recording artist in the world.

"The decline in Bessie’s fortunes from such heights was inevitable at the time. The advent of talking pictures and the radio, on the one hand, severely set back the recording industry, and gave her audience other sources of entertainment. The depression, on the other, struck her industry as well, and reduced the wherewithal of her potential customers.


"In fact, not only her personal but her professional life seemed on the way to a comeback in the years 1936-37. There apparently were major recording sessions and joint appearances in the works with the upcoming leaders of the musical world (Bennie Goodman, the Basie band), perhaps a film was being planned. In addition to this, a critic of the time observed that the "Empress of the Blues" had gone far beyond such limitations, and was "the greatest artist American jazz ever produced", perhaps transcending even the term "jazz".


This is one of her most famous hits, recorded in 1923 near the start of her professional recording career. Her influence is still being celebrated today by the likes of Eric Clapton, Tom Waits, Norah Jones and other gifted musicians.

Danserye Part I of II--Tielman Susato- Renaissance Dance Music.

La Mourisque, Les Quatre Branles
Dance Music from the 1500's
This is one of my favorite traditional compositions from this Era--it is often on the short list of any high school or college program of Renaissance music. Suffice to say dancing had to be a bit more formal 450 years ago than now. Hard to find a good Volta Dancing School these days ;-)

Hope you enjoy. Here a bit more on Tielman Susato (1500/1515--1570), the composer, from Wikipedia.


"Not much is known about his early life, but he begins appearing in various Antwerp archives of around 1530 working as a calligrapher as well as an instrumentalist: trumpet, flute and tenor pipe are listed as instruments that he owned. From 1543 until his death he worked as a music publisher, creating the first music press in the Netherlands; until then printing had mainly been done in Italy, France and Germany. Soon afterwards, Susato was joined by Pierre Phalèse at Leuven and Christopher Plantin, also in Antwerp, and the Low Countries became a regional center of music publishing. It is possible that Susato also ran a musical instrument business, and he attempted several times to form partnerships with other publishers but none were successful. In 1561 his son Jacob Susato, who died in 1564, took over his publishing business. Tielman Susato first moved to Alkmaar, North Holland, and later to Sweden. The last known record of him dates from 1570."

Song from Ecclesiastes: "Turn Turn Turn" - The Byrds

Music slide video created to the song Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds. (Done by HatitMissionary on You Tube)

The lyrics of the song were taken from Ecclesiastes. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1

The Book of Ecclesiastes (or, "The Preacher") is designated one of the Wisdom Books of the Bible. Although traditionally attributed to King Solomon, it was more likely written in the third century BCE by a Jewish scholar known as the "Qoheleth", meaning one who appears before an assembly ('kahal"). Some scholars have detected some of the influence of Greek rationality from the Classical Age in this work.

The Preacher recognizes that there is nothing new under the sun, that wisdom and riches and all other pleasures ultimately are useless, "a chasing after the wind".

"For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life?"

There is much existential angst in this book, making it perhaps the most modern to readers in the Hebrew Bible. The message must have rubbed some of the righteous the wrong way, but, as here it is in the midst of The Bible, serving as a counter-balance to some of the rosier sayings in Proverbs, which are not applicable in times of injustice and doubt.

In the end, the Preacher finds that there is a ray of hope in being alive and enjoying what pleasures and works a person is set to do in this world. Enjoy life as much and for as long as you can and remember your Creator. All deeds good and evil will be judged.

The American folk singer Pete Seeger highlighted the verses of the third chapter of the book in 1959, making it what was to become a popular anti-war ballad.
He only added six words to it and donated half of the proceeds from the royalties to charity.

It was The Byrds who has a Number One hit in America with it in October, 1965. It reached #22 on the charts in Britain that same year.

A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead

Two classic films of the 1960's joined together to make one really fake movie trailer.

Bobby Darin - Simple Song of Freedom

Booby Darin would have turned seventy-four years of age today, exactly one-half of the span he had on Earth. As a hit-maker of the 50's and 60's, he at first glance belongs to the style of lounge singing finger-snapping white guys like Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, et al, who made up the last front of show-biz entertainers who reached out to a largely formal, conservative and adult audience. His work in films seems very "square" indeed.

It would not be long before the youth quake and the turmoil of war and civil rights rocked the popular culture of America and Europe and profound changes came to pass.

Darin was one performer who was profoundly influenced by this political turmoil of his times. After the assassination of John Kennedy, he stopped being an entertainer for a three years to assess his life and where the nation was headed. Unlike most of his peers, who stuck to their personas as genial romantics, he spoke out to reach a new generation with his musical compositions and messages. Although his newer music didn't reach as many as his more "safe" hits like "Beyond the Sea" and a cleaned up version of "Mack the Knife", this song speaks to the tenor of the times in the same vein as the group Buffalo Springfield, Donovan or Johnny Cash.

SIMPLE SONG OF FREEDOM


Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war

Hey there, Mister Black Man can you hear me?
I don't want your diamonds or your game
I do want to be someone known to you as me
and I will bet my life you want the same

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war

Seven hundred million are enlisted
Most of what you read, most of what you read, is made of lies
But speaking one to one, ain't it everybody's sun
To wake to in the morning when we rise?

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung, never sung, before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war

No doubt some folks enjoy doin' battle
Like presidents, prime ministers and kings
So let's all build them shelves so they can fight among themselves
and leave us be those who want to sing

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never, ever, sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never, ever, sung before
Speaking one to one
Ain't it everybody's sun
To wake to in the morning when we rise
Speaking one to one
Ain't it everybody's sun
To wake to in the morning when we rise



This summation of Mr. Darin's career comes from the Rock and Roll Piano Man website on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/opurkert


"Bobby Darin cramped everything into the mere 37 years he lived. He was a multi-talented man who played the drums, piano, harmonica, guitar and what not. He was a successful actor, energetic entertainer, and a superb singer. Of course he is known mostly for his interpretations of "Mack The Knife", "Beyond The Sea", his early hits "Splish-Splash" and "Dream Lover". But among the many songs he wrote, arranged and produced, he also wrote and recorded great folk songs. He did a great version of Tim Hardin's "If I Was A Carpenter", his last real hit. After the assasinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, who's campaign he promoted, he wrote more politically motivated songs. They wouldn't become hits, but they are still great songs.
"Simple Song of Freedom" is just that and unfortunately has lost none of it's topicality. Seems like politicians haven't learned much since the 1960s. This is taken from a 1970's TV Special "A Night With Bobby Darin" and can be found on the DVD of the same name (Umbrella Entertainment), which also has a nice 43 min. biography."

Franz Schubert-- "Serenade"

A serenade for the beauty of nature. One of the most famous and romantic works by the great composer (1797-1828).

His music has turned up in dozens of films, mostly his most famous work, "'Ave Maria". "Serenade" set the proper mood most recently in Harry Jaglom's romantic-drama feature, "Deja Vu" (1997), and the historical romance "The Young Victoria" (2009).

The story behind the piece, from the "Music At Ease" website:
"One Sunday, during the summer of 1826, Schubert with several friends was returning from Potzleinsdorf to the city, and on strolling along through Wahring, he saw his friend Tieze sitting at a table in the garden of the 'Zum Biersack.' The whole party determined on a halt in their journey. Tieze had a book lying open before him, and Schubert soon began to turn over the leaves. Suddenly he stopped, and pointing to a poem, exclaimed, 'such a delicious melody has just come into my head, if I but had a sheet of music paper with me.' Herr Doppler drew a few music lines on the back of a bill of fare, and in the midst of a genuine Sunday hubbub, with fiddlers, skittle players, and waiters running about in different directions with orders, Schubert wrote that lovely song."