We are often confronted with the mandate of youth, and the conundrum of wisdom in the matter of — “Everything Goes!” — and I stand here to humbly submit that not everything must go. Sometimes, we need prescience and determination to realize the lack of self-restraint and that an untrained, unsavory, following can become profound enough to dangerously dismiss the best of us.
J’attendrai is one of those songs that, when you first hear it, you want to play it on the guitar and sing it in performance. The melody is perfect. I have yet to see a performance of the song that didn’t glide with a gracious humanity.
Translated from French as — “I Will Wait” — J’attendrai was first made popular in 1938 by Rina Ketty and was written by Dino Olivier and Nino Rastelli. J’attendrai is the hallmark song for the start of World War II as people all over the world prepared for an uncertain and dramatic future:
I will wait night and day,
I will wait forever,
For you to come back, I will wait, [I will wait]
For the bird flying away
Comes to seek oblivion in its nest.
Time flies and runs,
Beating sadly in my oh so heavy heart
And yet I will wait for you to come back
The most resonant, historic, performance of J’attendrai belongs to magnificent Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and expert violinist Stéphane Grappelli.
Continue reading → J’attendrai: Melodic Beauty and Grace in Performance
We have a national crisis with self-indulgent performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the USA. Our national anthem is being mangled by bad taste and poor singers when presented at the beginning of public sporting events.
What used to be a revered practice with hats off and hands held over hearts has now become a gross performance opportunity for a sub-par singer to take our anthem and mangle the melody in order to “show off” just what a wide-range they do not have.
The problem none of these horrible performers realize is that they cannot sing in tune, they fumble out of key, and they are ruining a closely beloved song that should never really be sung live in public because it is too easy to ruin the song with an awful, cat-strangling, performance.
The effort should not be in the song attempt, but rather in the respect we provide the song by allowing it to be heard plainly and properly as intended.
Continue reading → The Star-Mangled Banner: Houston, We Have a National Anthem Problem
JJ Cale was one of the greatest session players, performers and songwriters in the history of American music — and yet few people know the full stretch and depth of his influence on the songs we love and adore.
JJ Cale died unexpectedly this Summer at the age of 74. Here’s how his website told the world the news of his passing:
JJ Cale Has Passed Away
JJ Cale passed away at 8:00 pm on Friday July 26
at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, CA.
The legendary singer / songwriter had suffered a heart attack.
There are no immediate plans for services.
His history is well documented at JJCale.com, rosebudus.com/cale,
and in the documentary, To Tulsa And Back.
Donations are not needed but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like,
you can remember him with a donation to your favorite local animal shelter.
When you’re in the midst of writing something, you settle into a natural rhythm. The words set the backbeat and the fingers follow the melody in your mind. Yesterday, when I sat down to write about the sun, there was a lot of racket outside my window as four corners of an intersection were being torn up to replace the sewer drains. I decided to put on my closed-ear headphones, crank some iTunes music to drown out the heavy machinery, and write my article. I discovered, to my dismay, that something had changed as my natural writing manner was out-of-sync with my eye. My fingers couldn’t find the melody. My words had no natural backbeat.
Jack White’s first solo album, Blunderbuss, dropped today — and thanks to iTunes streaming the album for free the past week — I’ve been able to immerse myself in the music from start to finish many times a day. The album is a fascination. It’s ’70s Rock? Alternative Pop? Blues? Ragtime? Yes, Blunderbuss is all that and more.
Last year, I really enjoyed the debut of The Voice on NBC. I thought it was a fresh approach to music and we needed that respite from the drudgery of American Idol.
It’s that time of the year again and both Idol and The Voice are back and competing for eyes and ears and I am disappointed to report that, so far, The Voice has lost its magic in its insipid ordinariness and predictability. What used to be unique and fun has now become a bit of a bore fest.
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