Music recommendations

[datsunaholic]

[Jarlaxle]

Yes, that is Barry Manilow covering...Meat Loaf?!

[Bicycle Bill]

Yes, that is Barry Manilow covering...Meat Loaf?!

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD,  WHY ???
About the only way they could have done worse would have been to let William Shatner have a crack at it.

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

It could be worse: Meatloaf covering Barry Manilow.

[Jarlaxle]

It could be worse: Meatloaf covering Barry Manilow.

Don't think he ever did...but I expect he'd do it well.

He held his own with John Parr...

[Burning Petard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOa2Ty6 ... e=youtu.be

this is from a Boogie festival in Switzerland just last month. Typical Swiss audience--nobody is bopping their head or tapping their foot. But note they are ALL wearing masks, even if they are not 2 meters apart.

snailgate

[Jarlaxle]

[Bicycle Bill]

You can tell who's the trained, practiced professional operatic tenor, and who's the talented amateur wanna-be.

But let's face it; Meat Loaf was no slouch. In his prime, he had a range of over three octaves, and that's a good point from which to start.  If he had chosen to follow the same path as Pavarotti instead of selling his soul for rock-and-roll, Michael Lee Aday might have forced them to make the act "The Four Tenors".

-"BB"-

[Jarlaxle]

You can tell who's the trained, practiced professional operatic tenor, and who's the talented amateur wanna-be.

But let's face it; Meat Loaf was no slouch. In his prime, he had a range of over three octaves, and that's a good point from which to start.  If he had chosen to follow the same path as Pavarotti instead of selling his soul for rock-and-roll, Michael Lee Aday might have forced them to make the act "The Four Tenors".

-"BB"-

ML had no training at all. He's totally self taught.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I've seen a few of those Pavarotti and Friends things: notably Sting and Eric Clapton and that German guy in the hat. There is a bright line between bravery and and foolishness. Sting getting on the same stage as Pavarotti was just plain foolish. I've said before that you can't go wrong with Panis Angelicus. Yes you can. I applaud Mr Loaf for this one: he acquits himself well.

[ex-khobar Andy]

The Clapton Pavarotti one that is more than the sum of its parts, and should be adopted as a song for these times is Holy Mother. As anti-religionist as I am, I don't have the slightest objection to this:

[Burning Petard]

My cable tv provider blesses me with four different public television stations. But it seems all of them run Brit costume dramas or fund raisers on Sunday nite. Tonite one of them from New Jersey had a long special on Peter, Paul and Mary. I had it running in the background while I read some other stuff on social philosophy. But a couple of things intruded and kept my attention on what I was hearing. Some of the stuff the trio was doing included other singers. I was astounded how much better was the vocal instrument of a couple of other singers back in the day. One was Odetta. Her voice was wonderful and I recalled some of her records that I have. But really I was surprised by Joan Baez. I was shocked by the beauty of her upper register when she sang descant against P P & M. I had forgotten how good it was way back in the 60's. I heard Ms Baez live at the Wilmington Opera House about 10 years ago. It was a great show. Most of the audience had grey hair. And her voice was very different, as it should after more than 50 years.

I have almost no records by Joan Baez. Can anybody recommend an album from way back then that shows off her high range?

Thank you, snailgate

[Econoline]

You can't go wrong with any of her first four Vanguard studio albums ("Joan Baez", "Joan Baez Vol. 2", "Joan Baez/5", and my personal favorite (YMMV), "Farewell, Angelina"). The first two are almost all traditional folk songs; the third about half-and-half traditional folk and (then-)contemporary singer-songwriters; the fourth, with the title song a then-unreleased Bob Dylan tune and other tracks by Dylan and other contemporary musicians, was more contemporary than traditional. Oh, and the next (fifth) one, "Noël", was a Christmas album if that's your thing. The those five span the years from 1960 to 1966.

[Gob]

Not a Baez fan, but love her "Diamonds and rust."

[Sue U]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOa2Ty6 ... e=youtu.be

this is from a Boogie festival in Switzerland just last month. Typical Swiss audience--nobody is bopping their head or tapping their foot. But note they are ALL wearing masks, even if they are not 2 meters apart.

snailgate

OMG what a bunch of stiffs! What is wrong with those people have they all been paralyzed?

Remind me to never play a gig in Switzerland.

[Sue U]

Hey, as long as we're doing oldies, this one popped up n the radio yesterday and I remembered how good Sleater-Kinney can be (ignore the video, just groove to the jam):

[Bicycle Bill]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOa2Ty6 ... e=youtu.be

this is from a Boogie festival in Switzerland just last month. Typical Swiss audience--nobody is bopping their head or tapping their foot. But note they are ALL wearing masks, even if they are not 2 meters apart.

snailgate

OMG what a bunch of stiffs! What is wrong with those people have they all been paralyzed?

Remind me to never play a gig in Switzerland.

I don't think that's likely to become an issue.....

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

That reminds me of an anecdote Lou and Peter Berryman (I know Bill is familiar with them, and more people should be; they're hilarious and smart) told at one of their shows a couple of years ago . Their good friends and like-minded folk duo Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen happened to be touring in Switzerland, and during the show they performed Lou and Peter's very funny song, "Double Yodel". (Switzerland...yodeling...you know?) The audience sat through the song in stony silence, and there was a smattering of polite applause at the end...which left Steve and Cindy disappointed, and a little bewildered. Is yodeling something the Swiss take so seriously that laughing at it is verboten? A couple of days later, still unsure, they decided to try it again, in a different Swiss city. This time, they introduced the song by assuring the audience that it was supposed to be funny, and that it was okay to laugh. Sure enough, thus freed of their inhibitions, that new audience roared with laughter, and applauded thunderously when they finished.

Anyway... remembering that story got me wondering what the Berrymans have been up to lately, during the pandemic. I checked their website and found that they've still been managing to write and record songs, stuck in their separate homes. This one, "November PSA" (written in spring 2020), is the first of six new songs they've posted.

This Public Service Announcement (PSA) video was an experiment during quarantine. (You have to listen all the way to the end to find out why it's called "November PSA.") Peter, at his house, wrote lyrics and assigned chords and a tempo to them, and sent this document to Lou, at her house. He then wrote a melody to fit the chords, lyrics, and tempo. Without hearing Peter's melody, Lou also wrote a melody to fit the chords, lyrics, and tempo. Each made a smartphone video of themselves singing their resulting song. Then Lou sent her video to Peter, and he made a split screen video in iMovie with himself on the left and Lou on the right. When the songs were aligned, the melodies complimented each other surprisingly well, overlapping at some points and harmonizing at other points. This is the result. It was great fun!

It's a timely message:

[Bicycle Bill]

I just hope I get a chance to see them one more time live and in person.  They're out of Madison, Wisconsin, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from where I live, and before the world became covered in death they generally could be counted on to make at least one appearance per year at the Pump House Regional Arts Center in La Crosse.

It might be interesting to note that they were in fact husband and wife at one point in time. Unfortunately, that part of their life was not meant to last — in fact, they were already divorced by the time their first album ("Peter and Lou Berryman — No Relation") was released in 1980 — but they parted amiably enough that they were able to reconnect on a professional musical basis, and their ongoing performing career has endured something like 5X longer (and counting!) than the marriage.

I'm on their mailing list, and I guess I'll have to check their website to make sure I've got their latest material, and get some duplicate copies of some of the other older stuff of theirs that I have (from the days of cassettes and vinyl albums) before it becomes completely unavailable.

-"BB"-

[Gob]

Just in case anyone didn't know of this, an alternative take on the Baez song posted above..