1920s

Ringo Starr | Bye Bye Blackbird

“For Starr, who was working again with producer George Martin shortly after the arrival of the Beatles’ Abbey Road,” old standard tunes were “as comfortable a place as any to begin his own journey away from (the Beatles’) fame,” (UltimateClassicRock). “Sentimental Journey was released in late March 1970 – just weeks before the Beatles’ finale, Let It Be – and featured photographs of Starr’s family superimposed into the windows of an old building near his place of birth in Liverpool.

‘I wondered, What shall I do with my life now that it’s over?’ Starr mused in the album’s original liner notes. ‘I was brought up with all those songs, you know, my family used to sing those songs, my mother and my dad, my aunties and uncles. They were my first musical influences on me.’ … Starr remained firmly entrenched in a prewar vibe that had little to do with his mainstream success as the vocalist on Fab Four favorites like ‘Boys,’ ‘Yellow Submarine’ or ‘With a Little Help From My Friends.’ Nevertheless, such was the the level of interest in anything Beatles-related at the time that Sentimental Journey is said to have sold some half a million copies during its first week of release in the U.S., becoming a surprise Top 25 hit. Starr fared even better in the U.K., where Sentimental Journey shot to No. 7. ‘The great thing was that it got my solo career moving – not very fast, but just moving,’ Starr later told Mojo. ‘It was like the first shovel of coal in the furnace that makes the train inch forward.'” … Soon after, 1971’s “It Don’t Come Easy” became “a kind of theme song for Starr, shooting to the Top 5 all over the world.”

Originally released in 1926 with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Mort Dixon, “Bye Bye Blackbird” is a true chestnut of a standard! Starr’s version starts small and folksy with just a banjo to accompany the vocal, joined by a bass and honky-tonk piano before the first verse ends. Verse two grows quickly, with big band touches and subtle strings. Before the final turnaround starts, a half-step key change hits at 1:45 as the track continues to expand, embellished with a big band sound in full bloom. Quite unexpectedly, the arrangement was by Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees.

As always, many thanks to regular our keen-eared contributor Rob P. for submitting this tune!

Linda Ronstadt + the Nelson Riddle Orchestra | What’ll I Do

“While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has inexplicably remained immune to her charms, few artists have had the career of Linda Ronstadt,” (The Second Disc). ” She’s racked up 38 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including ten that went Top Ten. On the album chart, she’s placed 36 entries, including ten that reached the Top Ten there too (her magic number!) and three that hit pole position. And consider this: after playing a vital role in the country-rock scene with the Stone Poneys and their hit recording of Mike Nesmith’s ‘Different Drum’ on which she sang lead, Ronstadt embarked on a solo career definitively interpreting some of the greatest songs of the California rock genre.

Ronstadt never could stay in one place for long, though, which may account for her great longevity as a vital artist and performer. While she kept racking up hits from both her contemporaries and the voices of an early generation – think of “When Will I Be Loved,” “It’s So Easy,” “You’re No Good” or “That’ll Be The Day,” and chances are you might think of Ronstadt over those songs’ originators – she was looking for new directions and new challenges … In 1983, Linda Ronstadt teamed with Nelson Riddle, the man responsible for many of Frank Sinatra’s most famous orchestrations, for What’s New … It spent 81 weeks on the Billboard chart … In any format, What’s New is a classy excursion into timeless pop teaming one of the most familiar voices of all time with arguably the greatest arranger of them all.”

Ronstadt and Riddle’s version of Irving Berlin’s classic 1923 waltz ballad “What’ll I Do?” begins with a brief string intro leading to a short additional vocal section. The tune begins in earnest at 0:57, launching into a textbook AABA form built in Ab major overall. The B section (1:37 – 1:58) shifts up to Db major. The piece modulates wholesale up into A major at 2:18 with two instrumental A sections; Ronstadt rejoins the band on the B section at 2:59. The rubato outro spirals out of the otherwise measured arrangement, its closing bars off-kilter and unresolved.

Maurice Ravel | Boléro

“Before he left for a triumphant tour of North America in January 1928, (French composer) Maurice Ravel had agreed to write a Spanish-flavoured ballet score for his friend, the Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein … Ravel had long toyed with the idea of building a composition from a single theme which would grow simply through harmonic and instrumental ingenuity,” (ClassicFM). “Boléro’s famous theme came to him on holiday … He was about to go for a swim when he called a friend over to the piano and, playing the melody with one finger, asked: ‘Don’t you think that has an insistent quality? I’m going to try to repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.’

… By Ravel’s standards, the piece was completed quickly, in five months – it had to be ready for Rubinstein to choreograph. ‘Once the idea of using only one theme was discovered,’ he asserted, ‘any conservatory student could have done as well.’ The relentless snare-drum underpins the whole of the 15-minute work as Ravel inexorably builds on the simple tune until, with a daring modulation from C major to E major, he finally releases the pent-up tension with a burst of fireworks.” In this live recording from the 2014 BBC Proms, those fireworks arrive at the 13:22 mark, although C major makes a boisteous return shortly thereafter to end the piece.

“Boléro was given its first performance at the Paris Opéra on November 20, 1928. The premiere was acclaimed by a shouting, stamping, cheering audience in the midst of which a woman was heard screaming: ‘Au fou, au fou!’ (‘The madman! The madman!’). When Ravel was told of this, he reportedly replied: ‘That lady … she understood.’ … Although Ravel considered Boléro one of his least important works, it has always been his most popular.”

Jacques Ibert | Française (Lorenzo Micheli, guitar)

French composer Jacques Ibert’s “skill (at) improvisation became useful when he was employed as a pianist at silent movie theatres, where he composed scores to fit the action on the screen,” (JacquesIbert.fr). “He later was to write over sixty film scores for sound movies. World War I interrupted Ibert’s studies at the Conservatoire. He joined an army medical unit, and was decorated with the Croix de Guerre by the French government.”

After his military service, Ibert continued to lead a life of high achievement, not only as composer but as a French citizen. “Shortly after returning to the Conservatoire, Ibert stood for the competition for the Premier Grand Prix (Prix de Rome). He won the prize,which meant living up to three years in Rome at the Villa Medici, in October 1919. In 1937, Ibert was named Director of L’Académie de France à Rome, the first musician to hold this post. In 1955, Ibert was appointed General Administrator of the Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux (the combined management of Paris Opera and Opera Comique). In 1956, he was elected to the Académie des Beaux Arts of the Institut de France.”

Ibert wrote “Française” for guitar in 1926. “Ibert … wrote a number of operas, ballets, and film scores, as well as orchestral, vocal, and chamber music and some thirty instrumental pieces,” (ThisIsClassicalGuitar). The “Française” … “is a virtuosic composition with a startlingly original guitaristic style. This lively dance with roots in folk-music in 2/8 time begins with rapid triplets interspersed with linking scalic passages. A middle section offers ingenious harmonic modulations, intricate cross rhythms and short bursts of melody, leading to a reprise of the first section and a vigorous coda.” After a start in C major, the piece modulates to E major at 0:45. More shifts in tonality follow.