Tag: 1950s

New York Rock + Soul Revue | Lonely Teardrops

“At a time when rock concerts are putting an increasing emphasis on spectacle and choreography, it is refreshing to attend a show at which genuine interplay among musicians is the main attraction,” notes a New York Times review of a 1990 concert by the New York Rock & Soul Revue. “… Seasoned pop veterans working together in an unusually flexible and informal setting … a loosely-structured round-robin format.” According to AllMusic, the concert lineup included the organizer of the short series of shows, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, as well as Phoebe Snow, Charles Brown, Michael McDonald, Eddie and David Brigati (the Rascals), and Boz Scaggs. In the liner notes, Fagen called the selected tunes “durable music.”

Songfacts reports that “Lonely Teardrops,” made famous in 1959 by Jackie Wilson, was “written by Tyran Carlo (the pen name of Wilson’s cousin Roquel Davis) and a pre-Motown Berry Gordy Jr., who co-wrote eight other songs for Wilson. This song gave Gordy him the confidence to rent a building in Detroit and start the Tamla label, which would become Motown.” The tune was a #1 R&B hit, also reaching top 10 on the Pop charts.

Unlike the single-key original, the NYR+SR version has a quick key-of-the-moment lift from 2:19 to 2:26, but it’s a fake out that returns us to the original key almost immediately; 2:59 brings a real key change.

Jackie Wilson’s original:

Bobby Darin | Beyond The Sea

“Beyond The Sea,” with music adopted from the 1945 song “La Mer,” by French composer/singer Charles Trenet and lyrics adapted by Jack Lawrence, was made famous with Bobby Darin’s cover in 1959. Originally envisioned by Trenet as an homage and ode to the changing moods of the sea, Lawrence added “beyond” to the title and re-fashioned it into a love song. Darin’s version reached the #6 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; other notable artists who have covered the tune include Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, George Benson, Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow. The tune, written in AABA form, stays in F through the A sections and passes through A (0:53, 1:57) and C (1:04, 2:08) in the B section.

The Platters | Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

“One of the leading R&B vocal groups of the ’50s, The Platters were the first black group to be accepted as a major chart act,” reports Oldies.com. “For a short time, were the most successful vocal group in the world. The Platters were formed in Los Angeles in 1953. ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,’ which was an international number 1 hit single in 1958-59, highlighted their smooth delivery and arguably remains the group’s best-loved release…They were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990.”

The tune was written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for the ill-fated 1933 musical Roberta. Playbill reports that the Depression-era production was hamstrung from the start: “The biggest problem was the director, one Jerome Kern. That’s right, Kern — with no directing experience — directed the thing himself; Gordon, recovering from a flop musical which culminated in a nervous breakdown with a suicide attempt, gave in to Kern’s desire in order to get the rights. The show, which opened in Philadelphia — under the title Gowns by Roberta — was so poor that Gordon went ahead and fired Kern as director, although the latter remained on hand to work on the score. But a happy time was not had by anyone.”

Fortunately, the show yielded a wonderfully enduring tune. Starting in Eb major, the track modulates to the bridge, largely in B major (or more properly, Cb major), at 1:17. At 1:50, we return to Eb major. A leap of a major third: truly unusual!

Sarah Vaughan | Prelude to a Kiss

Sarah Vaughan’s 1954 version of Duke Ellington’s 1938 jazz standard ballad “Prelude to a Kiss,” including lyrics by Irving Gordon and Irving Mills, marks a long-overdue MotD debut for the vocalist widely known as the “Divine One.” Biography.com details that Vaughan “was invited to perform at the White House and Carnegie Hall, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1989, and was selected to join the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1990.” From WBUR’s retrospective of Vaughan’s life: “Where more idiosyncratic jazz artists like Billie Holliday excelled at interpretation, Miss Vaughan was a contralto who gloried in displaying the distinctive instrumental qualities of a voice that had a comfortable three-octave range.”

JazzStandards.com reports: “Written in an A1-A2-B-A2 form, the melody in the first and third measures of each A section sidles down the scale five halftones in a chromatic decline while the fifth measure starts out with a note repeated four times. The overall effect is a general flattening of the melody, drawing the ear to Ellington’s rich supporting harmonies. Starting in C major, there’s a modulation to E major during the ‘B’ section.

The chromatic nature of ‘Prelude to a Kiss’ produces a plaintive sound, a sad serenade that Gordon and Mills reflect in their lyrics. It’s the bridge, however, that brings true emotional release, almost to the point of seeming celebratory. Its corresponding lyrics express Ellington’s dramatic change in mood, relating the transformation of a pitiful love song into a Schubert symphony.”

In this version, the simplicity of the instrumentation truly shows off the complexity of the harmony while centering Vaughan’s vocal. The pivotal B section begins at 1:20.

Jean Berger | The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee

According to the Milken Archive of Jewish Music, composer Jean Berger was born Arthur Schlossberg in Germany in 1909. After earning a Ph.D. in musicology in 1931, he moved to Paris and changed his name to Jean Berger as the Nazis came to power in Germany. He later moved to the United States, became an American citizen, and enlisted in the US Army in 1942. After the war, he became an arranger for CBS and NBC and toured as a concert accompanist. During the latter part of his career, he taught for decades at several American colleges and universities while continuing to compose.

Choral works were very much the central focus of Berger’s composition. “The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee” (1959), one of Berger’s best known pieces, is based on text from Psalm 145. This performance, taken from a 2012 collection entitled Worthy to Be Praised, is by the Messiah University Choirs’ Chamber Singers.

After starting in E minor, the piece features a mid-section (0:49 – 1:18) which shifts across several keys. The third section partially mirrors the first, with the substantial difference of closing the piece in E major.

Danny + The Juniors | Rock + Roll Is Here to Stay

Although a little less well known than “At the Hop,” their biggest hit, “Rock’n’Roll is Here to Stay” was a hit for doo-wop group Danny and the Juniors; the single reached #19 on the pop charts and somehow also attained a #16 peak on the R&B chart. The quartet, originally called The Juvenaires, was comprised of four Philadelphia-area high school classmates. The group was a natural to be featured performers on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, but had to wait until a last-minute call when Little Anthony + the Imperials cancelled!

There are half-step modulations at 1:40 and 1:56. In addition to singing, the boys do a great job of helping the entire crowd clap on two and four!

Paul Anka | Put Your Head On My Shoulder

According to Billboard, “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” written and initially performed by Canadian singer/songwriter Paul Anka, was released as a single in 1959. The tune reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, but was deprived of the #1 slot by Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife.”

From the artist’s website:

“They are all very autobiographical,” says Anka of his early hits. “I was alone, traveling, girls screaming, and I never got near them. I’m a teenager and feeling isolated and all that. That becomes ‘Lonely Boy.’ At record hops, I’m up on stage and all these kids are holding each other with heads on each other’s shoulders. Then I have to go have dinner in my room because there are thousands of kids outside the hotel — ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder’ was totally that experience. Soon Paul found himself traveling by bus with the “Cavalcade of Stars’ with the top names of the day in the era of segregation, performing at the Copa Cabana, the youngest entertainer ever to do so, and honing his craft surrounded by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Lyman, and Chuck Berry.”

Anka went on to write for artists such as Buddy Holly and Connie Francis in addition to pursuing his own performance career.

The tune features lush backup vocals, gentle guitar with a saturated tremolo, and a 12/8 feel, all common features of the pop tunes of the era. There’s some total suspensions of the groove at 0:36, 1:31, and 2:01 — the last of which ushers in a modulation.

Samuel Barber | Summer Music for Woodwind Quintet, Op. 31

In its program notes for a 2004 performance, Chicago Chamber Musicians wrote: “Barber was often described during his lifetime as hopelessly old-fashioned; audiences approved of his music more than critics did. Over time, though, his individuality and depth of emotional expressiveness have won universal admiration and given him a pre-eminent place in the history of American music. With his tendency toward romantic melodiousness, combined with a classicist’s fondness for traditional structures, Barber has sometimes been compared to Brahms, who was also accused of being out of step with his times, but whose works seem to have survived nonetheless. Barber himself commented on the work’s pastoral mood: ‘It’s supposed to be evocative of summer — summer meaning languid, not killing mosquitoes.'” American Music reports that the 1956 piece, Barber’s only chamber composition for wind instruments, has become a staple of the wind-quintet repertory.

The performance here is from the 2013 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the ensemble is from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Starting with a more disjointed mood, the piece is initially built on a series of luxurious features/solos for each of the quintet’s instruments — although no one instrument takes the lead for long. The tonality shifts several times, generally staying in the minor realm. At 2:07, the mood shifts suddenly; the ensemble begins to speak mostly as one as the lines grow more percussive. At 2:44, there’s a shift towards an uncomplicated major tonality as the quintet sprints to the finish line.

Johnny Cash | I Walk the Line

According to WideOpenCountry.com, “Just weeks after the song’s 1956 release, Johnny Cash performed ‘I Walk The Line’ at the Grand Ole Opry and was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. Audiences instinctively connected with Cash’s unique track and vocals while musicians tried to put into words what was so special about Cash. ‘It was different than anything else you had ever heard,’ Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone. ‘A voice from the middle of the Earth.’ And NPR quotes Cash’s former son-in-law Rodney Crowell as saying, ‘You know, if Mt. Rushmore could open its mouth — any one of the sculptures on Mt. Rushmore could open their mouths and sing, that’s what it would sound like.’

WideOpenCountry reports that the song “stayed on the country charts for a solid year and sold over 2 million records. It even showed up on the pop charts for a while, giving Cash a bonafide crossover hit.”

Lacking a traditional verse/chorus structure (unless “because you’re mine/I walk the line” constitutes a chorus all on its own), the bare-bones tune takes a standard three-chord structure and jumps it through multiple modulation hoops. In the process of all of the key changes, we get a full tour of Cash’s bass/baritone vocal range, covering over two octaves.

Have You Seen a Child (from “Amahl + the Night Visitors”)

Weekend bonus mod: thanks to frequent contributor JB! Written by Gian Carlo Menotti, an Italian-American composer and librettist, Amahl and the Night Visitors first aired on NBC on Christmas Eve, 1951; it was the first opera written specifically for television and was intended to be children’s programming.

According to Opera Magazine, Menotti was challenged by deadlines; he was assisted by his composition colleague Samuel Barber in completing the orchestrations, which were first performed under the baton of NBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Arturo Toscanini. The production, later staged by many opera companies, was aired on national TV for eleven years straight; sporadic performances have continued over the years.

The main theme is repeated in several keys; the first modulation is at 0:33.