MAY I SHOW YOU MY ETCHINGS MY DEAR?

 

Maurice Chevalier casts a lecherous eye on Leslie Caron in 1958’s Gigi

This post could well have come under several of the Curmudgeons posts (The Darker Curmudgeon, The Philosophical Curmudgeon or even just The Curmudgeon) but, after a bit of discussion it was decided that I should write it.

THANK HEAVENS FOR LITTLE GIRLS

Yes you could say that songs and sequences like the above came from a simpler and more innocent time.

You could say that but there are a few facts that dispute it.

We've heard a lot in recent years about the dark side of Hollywood with racism, elitism, sexism and a whole lot of other isms were buried beneath a lot of saccharine sweetness and the dirty little secrets are only just surfacing.

Gigi is a good case in point. The film is charming and the music and songs sweet but let's not forget that it's about a girl being groomed for prostitution. That fact sits uncomfortably when you watch Maurice Chevalier’s “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” scene where he dotes on the very young Liza Minelli. His doting isn't avuncular or grandfatherly though because he’s imagining what an awesome whore that little girl will make when she gets older. 

With thanks to Richard of RBB for the inspiration for this post.*

* He likes a mention of gratitude.

BLESS ME FATHER FOR .....

Reverb hides a lot of sins ..... according to Robert the apathetic sanctimonious sinner and toilet cleaner (don't ask) and I guess that he should know.

I've never owned an electric musical instrument and certainly not a blue electric (or is that electric blue?) violin so I'll have to take his word for it.

This guy Rob (another Rob) has a video on the internet that 'explains' reverb on an electric violin.

BORING

To be honest I gave up listening to the boring bastard after a few minutes but for the more patient readers out there - 'fill your boots'.

I just skipped to some electric violin playing that I've heard before like Papa John Creach and Charlie Daniel's Band.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW - PAPA JOHN CREACH

DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA - CHARLIE DANIEL'S BAND

FEELING ALRIGHT?

 

FEELING ALRIGHT? - THREE DOG NIGHT

Feelin' alright?
I'm not feelin too good myself
Feelin' alright I'm not feeling too good myself

I like Three Dog Night and had an album of theirs in the early 1970s. It was a good band with good singers who did cover versions of some great blues and introduced me to the original blues writers and performers.

For some reason the song above came into my mind this morning and it was most likely because I was thinking about Richard, Shelley and Stephanie. I haven't had COVID thank Robert's god - I had three RAT tests in hospital during the week and was 'all clear'. I don't want to get it but it is worrying to hear of germaphobes like Richard getting it no matter what precautions he's taken. Maybe it was the maskless (cleanskin) chardonnay he drinks.

I'm not feeling so good myself but I feel a hell of a lot better now that I'm home. My plan for today is to move things (DVDs, PS games, computer connections etc) from the spare cupboard in the small lounge (which has become The Old Girl's 'woman-cave' since we put another TV in there where she can watch her romcoms, Marvel-type sci-fi films and other assorted stuff I can't stand). I'll move this stuff into the dresser I put in the shed last weekend and apologise for not having a photograph to show you. Maybe I can take one and update this post later.

Anyway, here's another Three Dog Night song to keep you going.

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME - THREE DOG NIGHT

They do a pretty good job on this song but it's not a patch on Sam Cooke's original.

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME - SAM COOKE

Cooke's version is more poignant not in the last because it's drawn from his personal experiences.

I hope that this isn't a downer given the news around the world so just remember:

It's been a long
A long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will

 

I'D RATHER GO BLIND ...*

 * A traditional saying and the most well known is "I'd rather go bling than see you walk away" the song written by Ellington Jordan and co-credited to Billy Foster and Etta James. It was first recorded by Etta James in 1967 and subsequently become regarded as a blues and soul classic.

Lyrics

Something told me it was over
When I saw you and her talkin'
Something deep down in my soul said, 'Cry, girl'
When I saw you and that girl walkin' around
Whoo, I would rather, I would rather go blind, boy
Then to see you walk away from me, child, no
Whoo, so you see, I love you so much
That I don't wanna watch you leave me, baby
Most of all, I just don't, I just don't wanna be free, no
Whoo, whoo, I was just, I was just, I was just
Sittin here thinkin', of your kiss and your warm embrace, yeah
When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now, baby
Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah
Whoo and baby, baby, I'd rather, I'd rather be blind, boy
Then to see you walk away, see you walk away from me, yeah
Whoo, baby, baby, baby, I'd rather be blind...

James version is, to me, the best and she recorded several versions of the song. This live performance though shows how she really put her heart into it:

ETTA JAMES

The song has been covered by quite a few well-known musicians, some doing great versions like BB.King and Elkie Brooks and others mangling it like Rod Stewart and a whole lot of Britain's Got Talent-type wannabes.

Beyonce did a good job in the film Cadillac Records in which she played the part of Etta James:

BEYONCE

Another quite powerful version is by Beth Hart who has a great voice and presence enough to do this song justice:

BETH HART

The first version I heard myself wasn't the original by Etta James, it was sung by Christine Perfect  who was in the band Chicken Shack which I used to listen to in the late 60s and early 70s along with lots of other British R&B bands. I still like her version:

CHRISTINE PERFECT

***********************

Now I appreciate the sentiment in the song and the meaning of the song title as a failed love affair can be devastating, but I do feel that Ellington Jordan et al might not have enough of an appreciation of how devastating actually going blind is. I'm not blind and, touch wood (I'm superstitious) am not going blind but I do have poor eyesight and have to wear corrective eyeglasses. This has always been a hassle in day to day activities like sports, lovemaking, work, driving, swimming and, on the one occasion, getting the shit kicked out of me alongside Richard at a Wellington party (I had to hold on to my glasses so that the thugs didn't smash them as they were trying to do with my head).

LION TAMER?

I was listening to Dire Strait's Wild West End today (again). God I love this song - it's so evocative.

 WILD WEST END

The lyrics are spot-on and this bit always 'gets' me: 

And my conductress on the number nineteen

She was a honey

Pink toenails and hands all dirty with money

Greasy hair easy smile

Made me feel nineteen for a while

Devotees of this blog -  and I can assure you that they have reached single figures already - will remember that I wrote about this song about 6 years ago: CONNECTIONS #1

I had noticed a connection between it and an old Hancock's Half Hour programme from the 1960s.

Excuse me - I'm off to YouTube to see if I can find that old programme.

FUNNY FACE

 

OK, I was trawling through YouTube this morning (it is a rainy day) and discovered this clip:

SWINGING WITH THE BOW

It made me laugh and also got me thinking - "why do double bass players pull such funny faces when playing?".

The only double bass player I know, Richard (of RBB) does this:

SMD

That was with bowing.

AUT L

In case you didn't know, that was without bowing. I apologise for any confusion this might cause if you are unfamiliar with technical music terms.

Well, that's all really. It didn't answer my question "why do double bass players pull such funny faces when playing?" but I'll leave you with this filler article from INVERSE by Mark Kauffman:

When the great B.B. King bent a nasty blues note on his guitar, it looked like someone was twisting his leg off.

There is a nebulous place where music collides with emotion, and for many musicians, this meeting of the mind’s sensory neurons, motor function, and cognition proves combustible, and whatever wells up is commonly manifested in a musician’s most noticeable feature: their face. Etta James, Neil Young, and Eddie Vedder all prove the case, and on Saturday Night Live this past weekend, Este Haim of the pop band Haim gave a truly impressive facial performance, alternating between grimaces and unfettered, wide-mouthed bewilderment. However neuro-complex the phenomenon may be, it’s likely rooted in our evolutionary past.

“Music in its history – the big, long history – never focused exclusively on the auditory component,” says Bill Thompson, who researches music and emotion at Macquarie University.

Millennia before the invention of the gramophone, back when music was never recorded and was always a live, intentional event, “music traditionally involved seeing and hearing and moving,” says Thompson.

Whether in the bowels of European cave or inside a raucous medieval tavern, music was wedded to expression, so it’s logical that our emotions are still inherently linked to our behaviors (sic) and actions.

“People are compelled by their own emotional response to their music, and that emotion is going to affect you much more than if you’re just merely listening,” Thompson says.

When one is performing, perhaps on a historic stage in front of a national audience — like Este Haim Saturday night — “it becomes a much more intense musical experience that will affect movement and facial expressions,” he says.

Darwin devoted six pages to human music in The Descent of Man, where he described an evolutionary basis for the human propensity for song, specifically as a courtship display to attract mates. 150 years later, The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger might agree, but modern neuroscientists think that music serves as much more than a wooing technique.

In the present day, we know that music powerfully activates our motor cortex – the part of the brain responsible for every movement we make – as we move our fingers, limbs, and mouths. Taken with a strong dose of emotional response to a meaningful tune, “this motor activity in the brain permeates your behavior (sic) and has kind of a cascade effect,” says Thompson. It’s little surprise, then, that Este Haim, while playing bass and singing her own music, is involuntarily overcome by the experience, and in her own, distinctive way, expresses it in seemingly exaggerated, though involuntarily facial expressions.

And this is precisely what we, the viewers, want to experience. “People flood to concerts, and they don’t want to close their eyes,” says Thompson. “They want to see how music affects the performer.”

TINY DESK

This is good:

ROBET PLANT AND ALYSON KRAUSS

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss collaborated on an excellent album about 15 years ago titled Raising Sand. It was very successful and won lots of awards but best was that it was great to listen to. One of my favourite musicians and producers, T-Bone Burnett produced that.

The pair were often slated as being an unlikely combination given their difference in age and and musical background but just have a listen to how their voices combine and I'm sure you will see that they were made to be a duo.

They have just released a new album, Raise The Roof, again produced by Burnett.  Once again the voices meld perfectly with the songs and Burnett gets the best performance from them along with an absolutely complementary band.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.