If you want to know what triggered the Dog’s preoccupation with Hawaiian music, check out the clip below. I came across it a few months back and have not succeeded in putting it out of my mind. The reference in the spoken introduction to an “urban cowboy” — the title of a film released in 1980 — suggests that it was recorded when the performer, who was born in 1909, was over seventy. After the first minute and a half, I defy anyone watching to sing along.
Solomon Kamaluhiakekipikealiʻikaʻapunikukealaokamahanahana Bright, Sr., was the fifth of fourteen children. In a newspaper interview — later republished in the book Hawai’i Chronicles Two (University of Hawai’i Press 1998) — he recalled gathering duck eggs as a youth in the swamps of Honolulu and
A pivotal moment in the history of popular music occurred at an unexpected place and time. The place was La’ie, a Mormon enclave on the northeastern coast of the island of Oahu. The time was 1885, when Hawaii was an independent nation ruled by its own monarch. And the person responsible was even more surprising: an eleven-year-old boy.
According to a story repeated for generations, the boy — Joseph Kekuku — was walking by the railroad tracks one day carrying a guitar, perhaps of the Spanish variety that had been widely disseminated in the Islands since at least the 1840’s. He idly picked up a bolt on the railroad bed and it brushed against one the strings. According to another account, which circulated within his family, he was playing guitar outside the local Cash and Carry when he leaned over and a steel comb tumbled onto the strings from his pocket. Whatever the cause, he was riveted by the sound he heard and spent the next seven years inventing a new instrument — the Hawaiian steel guitar — and perfecting a technique for playing it. For much of that time, Kekuku — whose family were pioneers unsuccessfully attempting to found a settlement for Hawaiian Mormons in Skull Valley, Utah — was enrolled in the Kamehameha School for Boys in Honolulu. From there, the new music quickly spread throughout the archipelago and the world beyond.
This subject is explored in a fascinating book published last year by the University of North Carolina Press: Kika Kila, by Professor John W. Troutman. The author explains how the new music helped preserve Hawaiian culture after the monarchy was overthrown by United States marines, the queen tossed in prison, and the Hawaiian language banned in schools. But the impact on the American mainland, where Kekuku and his followers went to teach and perform, was also profound. One indication was that by 1916, Hawaiian records were the top selling music category in the United States. Have a listen to one of them:
Another sign was the success of the Oahu Publishing Company. Although founded by a car thief who had escaped from a prison road gang, (more…)
On Saturday, July 6, 1957, St Peter’s — a parish church in Woolton, England — held a garden fete. There were games for children and a 25-piece military band. A “Rose Queen” was crowned. Oh, and to keep the teenagers interested, there was also one of those “skiffle groups,” a British take on an American jug band that performed an amalgam of folk, country, and blues. Ivan Vaughn, who played bass, invited along a friend and introduced him to the group’s leader. Ivan’s friend was Paul McCartney. The leader of the group, then known as the Quarrymen, was John Lennon.
According to Phillip Norman’s recent biography of McCartney, he had actually seen Lennon on prior occasions in their Liverpool neighborhood. But Lennon looked to him like a “Teddy boy” — one of those young men who responded to the advent of rock and roll by donning “Edwardian-stype velvet-collared jackets” and narrow trousers “with accessories often including switchblade knives, razors, brass knuckles and bicycle chains.” McCartney recalled that when Lennon got on the bus, “I wouldn’t stare at him too hard in case he hit me.” This time, McCartney had the chance to audition. Lennon invited him to join the Quarrymen and the rest is history.
Although McCartney did not play that day, the Quarrymen’s performance happened to be captured on a reel-to-reel recorder by a man in the audience named Bob Molyneau. Thirty-seven years later, he found the tape. While the quality is poor, you can listen to it here:
In the interest of celebrating this special anniversary, I’ll also share another exceptional clip. This may not be one of the Beatles’ best songs, but the energy and audience enthusiasm are irresistible. And it illustrates a side of Lennon’s character that is often overlooked.
Popular culture comes in a variety of forms. There may be a traditional version (or versions) that is handed down from generation to generation. There may be underground variations that until recent years were not discussed in polite society. And there may be a “prime time” offering designed so as not to offend a broad general audience. As a case in point, I offer “Stagger Lee” — one of the most durable American crime ballads and a celebration of badass criminal violence that predates gangsta rap by about ninety years.
“Stagger Lee,” also known as “Stackolee” and “Stagolee,” has been recorded over four hundred times by artists from Mississippi John Hurt to Wilson Picket to, in more recent years, Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse. It tells the story of a fight between a man named Billy Lyons and the title character — a tough-as-nails anti-hero who mercilessly shoots Billy down. Here is a recording with a traditional feel released in 1969 by Taj Mahal.
Much research has gone into tracing in the origins of the song. In The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language, Alan Lomax referred to tales identifying Stagger Lee with the mulatto son of a Confederate cavalryman and with a “tough Memphis sport” who “sold his soul to the Devil in return for a magic Stetson hat.” But more recent scholarship has identified the protagonist as
This evening, the Dog is sharing a delightful bit of lunacy from a veteran comedy songwriting team.
Incidentally, for those who do not know (which included me until I googled it), “Sally Ann” refers to the Salvation Army. A bullhead is a kind of catfish. And Monona Bay is in Madison, Wisconsin — in the part of the country and the Berrymans call home and which has deeply influenced their particular brand of folk music.
Lou (for Louise) Berryman (nee Noffke) and Peter Berryman met in high school and were sweethearts in college. Since they began recording together, they have released eighteen albums and written over two hundred songs. Generally, Lou composes the music and Peter is responsible for the lyrics. When they perform, Lou plays the accordion and Peter plays the 12-string guitar. Perhaps their most famous piece is one you may have heard that contains the chorus: “We sit down to have a chat./ It’s F-word this and F-word that./ I can’t control how you young people talk to one another./ But I don’t want to hear you use that F-word with your mother.”
This year, the Berrymans announced that after decades of touring the country together, they are retiring from doing so. Who can blame them? They are both turning seventy.
One interesting aspect of their relationship is that while Lou and Peter married in 1967,
Once upon a time, when the Dog was online, seeking a female counterpart (you know the word), he came across a personal profile that piqued his interest. The woman who wrote it and the Dog shared some common ground. But there was also something about it that gave the Dog paws. I mean pause.
Months went by. On a few occasions, the Dog checked to see if the profile was still there. One day, he noticed a significant addition. Under the statement: “the most private thing I’m willing to admit,” the mystery woman had posted the word “this.” The word was a link. With a click, it led to this video:
After that, the Dog decided against initiating contact once and for all. But what is one to make of such a song?
This week, the Dog is passing along a favorite piece of trivia. It concerns a person from an extraordinarily intellectually accomplished family.
Our story begins in 1882 with the birth in Breslau, Germany of Max Born. Born, who had a famous correspondence with Albert Einstein, made major contributions in his own right to quantum mechanics, solid-state physics and optics. In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
Born married Hedi Ehrenberg, who came from a distinguished family of her own. Her father Victor was a noted law professor at the University of Leipzip, Her grandfather Rudolph van Jhering has been called “the father of sociological jurisprudence.”
In 1933, when the Nazi Party came to power, Born was fired from his job. He and Hedi emigrated to England with their nineteen year old daughter Irene. Irene later fell in love with a man name Brinley who served as an intelligence office. Brinley worked on building the Enigma machine, the secret project used to break the German military code during World War II. And in 1941, when Hitler’s deputy fuhrer Rudoph Hess flew to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate a peace deal, Brinley reportedly was the man who apprehended him. After the war, Brinley became a professor of German at the University of Melborne.
Brinley and Irene had a daughter who grew up to have a career of her own. Was she a physicist? A law professor? An cryptographer? A linguist? Can you guess who she is?
He was one of the musical icons of my childhood. Back then, as now, he was known primarily for “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore,” “Draft Dodger Rag,” and other overtly political protest songs of the 1960’s. But as the decade drew to a close, Phil Ochs sought a new direction. To that end, he tried writing more personal material in a style inspired by the early days of rock and roll.
Among his late work is this curiosity, which tells the story of a lavish party disrupted by one of the guests. “While we were dancing,” the narrator relates, for no apparent reason, someone ruined the occasion by tossing a gourmet food basket into a swimming pool. It was “the worst of manners” and “the worst of taste.” So “who was the fool”?
The song leaves the question unanswered. But it refers to a real incident at an actual party. And the unspoken punchline is that “the fool” was(more…)
A woman sits at a piano and the world is at her fingertips. She may be on the verge of performing any one of thousands of pieces in innumerable styles. And new ones are being written every day. But regardless of her technical virtuosity, there are some songs she could never hope to play. They would require her to depress in unison combinations of notes that no human hands could reach — or race from note to note across the keyboard at speeds no human hands could attain. What is the sound of this secret music?
Conlon Narcarrow was born in 1912 in Texarkana, Arkansas, where his father was later elected mayor. Whatever interest he had in playing piano himself was destroyed by his childhood piano teacher, who he described as a “horrible old spinster.” But he took up the trumpet, became fascinated with jazz, and went on to study music in Cincinnati and Boston. He also became committed to radical politics and fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
Upon returning to the United States, Narcarrow was influenced by the theoretical work of Henry Cowell, who had become one of the most important avant-guard composers of his time (before being sent to San Quentin for having sex with teenage boys). Cowell had suggested that certain experimental rhythms could only be performed on a mechanical player piano. That idea set in motion decades of effort on Nancarrow’s part. But he pursued his dream abroad.
After being denied a passport because of his membership in the Communist party, Nancarrow renounced his American citizenship and resettled in Mexico City. There, he worked in isolation and obscurity, composing for player piano and punching the roles by hand. The results took music in a new direction:
Note that after 1 minute 21 seconds into the clip, you can view the keyboard in action.
As the years went by, Nancarrow’s experiments grew stranger and bolder. He (more…)
The video clip you are about to see has been viewed over twenty million times. It’s performed by an artist who has been described as a global superstar. But you’ve probably never heard his name.
Khaled Hadj Brahim was born in 1960 in Oran, Algeria, the son of a mechanic who worked in a police garage. He was influenced by both North African music and the music of the West, including Elvis Presley. He released his first record at age fourteen and recorded under the name Cheb Khaled (or “young Khaled”) before graduating to Khaled (pronounced HOLL id, with the first syllable as in “holly”). He also became known as the King of Rai (pronounced RYE) — a word that literally translates as “opinion” and refers to a form of popular music known for its social commentary.
Khaled expanded his reach after relocating to France. In 1996, he scored a huge hit with this track by a French songwriter:
The words, sung in French and Arabic, describe a man’s love for a beautiful woman, to whom he offers pearls, jewels, gold, and fruits tasting of honey. But how the object of his desire responds may confound expectations:(more…)
