Vocalist Trijntje Oosterhuis has been part of the Dutch pop scene since the 1990s. After touring with saxophonist Candy Dulfer, she formed the band “Total Touch” with her brother Tjeerd, releasing two successful albums in the late 90s. She went on to embark on a solo career.
She has released two albums of Burt Bacharach songs, The Look of Love (2006) and Who’ll Speak for Love (2007), with Bacharach performing on some of the tracks.
The selection here, “What the World Needs Now,” another Bacharach/David song, was a hit for Jackie DeShannon in 1965 (Billboard #7). The video is taken from a 2008 DVD release, Ken Je Mij (Do You Know Me), a series of duets with Uruguayan guitarist Leonardo Amuedo.
“Aly Bain was born on May 15 1946 in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland,” (WorldMusicCentral). “Lerwick is a small, enchanting town on the Shetland Islands. Aly began learning fiddle at the age of eleven. Tom Anderson, his teacher, is acknowledged as one of the true masters of Shetland music. Aly developed a highly dramatic style of playing, matching his great tone and technical ability with genuine emotion. Alert to the musical potential of the dynamic interaction between Irish and Scottish traditions, he helped establish the Boys of the Lough. The group is now recognized as one of the best in the tradition.”
Fiddler Jay Ungar was “a Bronx kid” while pianist Molly Mason “grew up in Washington State,” (JayAndMolly.com). “He was raised on pop music of the 1940s and ’50s. She had a fondness for traditional fiddle music and ’30s and ’40s popular tunes. He hung out in Greenwich Village coffeehouses and roamed North Carolina and Tennessee in search of traditional players. She played clubs and colleges on the West Coast and took a liking to the jazzy sound of the Swing Era. Since joining forces—both artistically and romantically (the two would marry in 1991)—Jay Ungar and Molly Mason have become one of the most celebrated duos on the American acoustic music scene.” Ungar is probably best known for co-writing “Ashokan Farewell” with Mason — a tune which was featured in the Ken Burns series The Civil War and certainly feels like it was written a century or more before its 1982 debut.
Ungar, Bain, and Mason collaborate here on “The Lovers’ Waltz,” also written by Ungar and Mason. Starting in G major, the tune alternates between solo and duo fiddle lines and a solo by an uncredited guitarist as the key shifts up to D major at 1:47.
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful, Mae West is reputed to have said. Accordingly, this post marks the third appearance of “Águas de Março” on Modulation of the Day. The earlier versions were by Susannah McCorkle and the version by the song’s composer Antonio Carlos Jobim with singer Elis Regina This version is indeed wonderful.
Guitarist Josh Turner’s YouTube channel features his collaborations with many other musicians, often singer Carson McKee, singer Allison Young, and singer Reina del Cid and her regular guitar accompanist, Toni Lindgren. Your correspondent was fortunate to see Reina del Cid’s show in San Francisco a few years ago, where Josh’s group with McKee, The Other Favorites, was the warmup act.
Here, Josh is paired with singer Martina DaSilva, who is American but speaks fluent Portuguese (her father is Brazilian). Their version tracks the Jobim/Regina version pretty closely, except the whistled middle section is replaced by a muted trombone solo, performed by DaSilva’s husband Josh Holcomb. The song is in B-flat. The trombone solo features fewer out-of-key notes than the whistled solo from Jobim and Elis, but enough to get the point across. Yes, that’s a quote of Walter Wanderley’s “Summer Samba”!
Jim Croce was “a songwriter with a knack for both upbeat, catchy singles and empathetic, melancholy ballads” … (AllMusic). “Croce appealed to fans as a common man, and it was not a gimmick — he was a father and husband who went through a series of blue-collar jobs. And whether he used dry wit, gentle emotions, or sorrow, Croce sang with a rare form of honesty and power. Few artists have ever been able to pull off such down-to-earth storytelling as convincingly as he did.”
“Jim Croce wrote this reflective song the night that he found out his wife, Ingrid, was pregnant,” (Songfacts) … “She recalls a mix of terror and delight in Jim’s reaction when she told him the news. The child was a boy named Adrian, who grew up to become the singer-songwriter A.J. Croce … ‘Time In A Bottle’ hit #1 in America 14 weeks after Croce was killed in a plane crash. Croce started touring after he completed his last album, I Got A Name. On September 30, 1973 a plane carrying Croce and five others crashed upon takeoff as he was leaving one college venue to another 70 miles away … The single entered the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 1, 1973 and finally reached #1 for the week ending December 29, a little over three months after he died.”
The verses are in D minor, but the choruses (heard first between 0:56 – 1:17) shift to D major. Quite unusually, the title is mentioned only at the beginning of the first verse, rather than during the chorus.
“Eileen Ivers will change the way you think about the violin,” (CapeSymphony.org). “It is a rare and select grade of spectacular artists whose work is so boldly imaginative and clearly virtuosic that it alters the medium. GRAMMY-winning Celtic fiddler Eileen is a nine-time All-Ireland Fiddle Champion and original musical star of Riverdance. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Eileen has played with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sting, and The Chieftains; performed for presidents and royalty; and is hailed as one of the great innovators and pioneers in the Celtic and World music genres. Her recording credits include over 80 contemporary and traditional albums and numerous movie scores, including Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Billboard magazine called Eileen a ‘sensation’ and The New York Times called her ‘the Jimi Hendrix of the violin.'”
Ivers’ 2021 track “Pachelbel’s Frolics” is based on Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” (written somewhere between 1680 and 1706). The Canon has since become nothing short of omnipresent, gaining fame for its composer as something of a classical music one hit wonder. But by now the Canon, a victim of its own success, is certainly near the top of many “needs a refresh” lists: “Since the 1970s, the Canon has been played at innumerable weddings, and quite a few funerals … been called upon to underscore: a tribute to baseball hero Ted Williams at Boston’s Fenway Park (2002); a tenth anniversary commemoration of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots … (2002); a renewal of vows at a Grand Forks, ND old-age home where the harpist was over 90 and the cumulative years married totaled 735 (2006); and … a yearly ceremony in which medical students at the University of Minnesota paid final respects to the cadavers they had lately finished dissecting in first-year gross anatomy class (1997).” (Prisoners of Pachelbel: An Essay in Post-Canonic Musicology, Robert Fink).
Ivers provides a refreshing renovation to the Canon by including some well-trodden ground while also welcoming sprightly new melodic ideas, tempo changes, and a wide-ranging tour of various fiddle styles into the vocabulary. An even larger departure is the modulation to the parallel minor from 2:21 – 3:10.
The Boys of the Lough,a Scottish/Irish group specializing in Celtic music, released their first album in 1972. “That Night in Bethlehem” is included on their 1996 album, Midwinter Night’s Dream. The vocal verses are set in D minor, separated by instrumental interludes in A minor.
“With her expressive soprano voice employing sudden alterations of volume and force, and her lyrical focus on Los Angeles street life, Rickie Lee Jones comes on like the love child of Laura Nyro and Tom Waits on her self-titled debut album (1979),” (AllMusic).
The personnel on the album leaned heavily towards players from the jazz genre, creating a sound that “follows the contours of Jones’ impressionistic stories about scuffling people on the streets and in the bars. There is an undertow of melancholy that becomes more overt toward the end, as the narrator’s friends and lovers clear out … But then, the romance of the street is easily replaced by its loneliness. Rickie Lee Jones is an astounding debut album that simultaneously sounds like a synthesis of many familiar styles and like nothing that anybody’s ever done before.”
“Last Chance Texaco” starts out with an apparent focus on auto maintenance — and its elevated importance as one’s location grows increasingly remote. But it later becomes clear that the focus is much broader, even though the automotive euphemisms endure throughout. Intermittent swelling and fading hints of a lonesome highway are evoked instrumentally during the verses, joined by Jones’ own multi-layered wordless backup vocal around 3:30. The easy 6/8 feel of the F# major chorus transitions to a poignant, restive chorus in E minor (first heard from 1:01 – 1:39). Make sure to check out the gorgeous lyrics, as Jones’ delivery varies hugely in both volume and clarity.
It’s her last chance Her timing’s all wrong Her last chance She can’t idle this long Her last chance Turn her over and go Pullin’ out of the last chance Texaco The last chance
Leveret is a collaboration among three of England’s most prominent traditional folk musicians. From the band’s site: “Andy Cutting, Sam Sweeney and Rob Harbron are each regarded as exceptional performers and masters of their instruments. Together their performances combine consummate musicianship, compelling delivery and captivating spontaneity. Leveret’s music is not arranged in the conventional sense and instead they rely on mutual trust, listening and responding. Their playing is relaxed and natural, drawing audiences in and inviting them to share in music making that is truly spontaneous and yet deeply timeless … Leveret’s music is firmly rooted in the English tradition but sounds fresh and new” … the trio’s “trademark groove, energy and intuitive playing” lands them in the territory of “finest tunesmiths in the folk field.”
The subtleties of which instrument is leading and which are following, the seasoned communication among the member of the trio, and the rock-solid time throughout are among the most noticeable features of this live performance of “Cotillion” (2022). The smooth and subtly shifting textures among the melodeon, concertina, and fiddle are quite hypnotic, making the modulation up a fourth (2:40) all the more impactful.
“The Roches were a magical musical act, influenced by barber-shop style tight harmonies, Irish melodies, bee-pop and the Brill Building writers,” (HotPress.com). “They wrote – either solo or in various combinations – songs about: their lives together and apart; sweaty train journeys; cheating husbands; dogs; waitressing; family secrets; trips to Ireland; and, sometimes, even an impossible and improbable relationship.
They didn’t fit in, but by not fitting in they presented the perfect template for all the rest of us who felt we didn’t fit in either. They eventually found a way to fit in by creating – stealing might even be a better word – a space for themselves in a music business distracted and preoccupied by rock, disco, and punk …they were not scared to show their horizons lay way beyond the perceived limits of folk, or any other contemporary music, for that matter.”
A track from the trio’s debut self-titled album (1979), “Hammond Song,” gives voice to the inevitable forks in life’s road and the consequences which follow. The Roche sisters’ keening vocal delivery is immediately recognizable after only a few notes. Their nearly vibrato-free vocal style would be quite unforgiving of any intonation issues, but the Roches’ excellent ears and unfettered originality turned into their force-of-nature delivery into their indelible signature. After a start in Eb major, 2:37 brings a shift to Bb major, and then there’s a reversion to the original key at 3:28. Both modulations slip by during relative lulls in the volume and texture of this otherwise rich vocal tapestry.
An excerpt from TheGreatAlbums‘ review of 1988’s album Never Die Young: “Taylor’s final outing of the ‘80s doesn’t contain any surprises, although the absence of any cover song is a bit of a shock since most of his post-‘Fire and Rain’ hits had been covers and Taylor had seldom released an album without one. Never Die Young is almost equal parts comprised of Taylor’s trademark ballads and easygoing grooves tailor-made for adult-contemporary radio.”
So much for the singles. But “Letter in the Mail” is a gorgeous track buried in the middle of Never Die Young. Taylor’s tunesmithing was so refined by this point that the tune casually modulates between the intro and the first verse. But the subject matter couldn’t have been more serious: rock-ribbed rural America, hollowed out and depopulated, still proudly carrying on as best as possible even after the industrial or agricultural engine(s) of the community have long since departed.
When people used to talk about the country That’s what they used to mean …
The intro starts in F major, followed by a verse in F# major. At 1:11, the pre-chorus shifts to A major; at 1:39, the chorus shifts back to F# major. At 2:14, another verse appears, this time in G major. 3:09’s pre-chorus is in Bb major. At 3:37, another chorus is back to G major — which is the key that finishes out the tune.
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