kevinsteel.org » Audio

Valentine’s Day Music

Kevin Steel — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:07:12 +0000

Valentine’s Day isn’t just about perfunctorily purchasing tokens of affection for philistines. There’s love, too. And with love there is sometimes sadness. Here’s one of my favourite country/bluegrass tunes, “Is The Blue Moon Still Shining” written by Bill Monroe’s daughter Melissa, performed by Laurie Lewis.

Early morning music

Kevin Steel — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:29:30 +0000

Music Mike gives us “Volcano” by The Three Suns from 1960. This track is very similar to the sound on their Fever and Smoke album that followed a year after this song’s release.

Early morning music

Kevin Steel — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:35:41 +0000

“Stir it up” by Bob Marley and the Wailers. I’ve been humming this for the last couple of days, “I push the wood / I blaze a fire / Then I satisfy your heart desire.” Yah mon.

A candidate for rescoring

Kevin Steel — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:01:34 +0000

Last night TCM ran Barbarella as part of it’s underground film series. It’s a real piece of crap, so it’s not suprising it has possibly the worst soundtrack in cinematic history, though that’s not universally acknowledged. Obviously a low point in Bob Crewe’s career, it’s the only film in which he was given the role of music supervisor.

Early morning music

Kevin Steel — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:14:45 +0000

A little bel canto sing-along from Act 2 scene 3 of Bellini’s Norma, a concert performance of the duet "Mira, o Norma" (followed by "Cedi…deh cedi") with sopranos Edita Gruberová and Vesselina Kasarova accompanied by Friedrich Haider on piano.

In case you’ve forgotten the lyrics, here they are;

ADALGISA
Mira, o Norma, a’ tuoi ginocchi
Questi cari pargoletti.
Ah! pietà di lor ti tocchi
Se non hai di te pietà.

NORMA
Ah! perché la mia costanza
Vuoi scemar con molli affetti?
Più lusinghe, più speranza
Presso a morte un cor non ha.

(English Trans.)
ADALGISA
See, o Norma, at your knees,
These dear, dear children.
Let pity for them move you,
If you feel no pity for yourself…

NORMA
Ah, why do you try to weaken me
With such soft feelings?
Such illusions, such hopes
Are not for one about to die…

If you prefer orchestra and action, here’s the "Mira, o Norma" clip from a 1997 La Scala production with Tatiana Troyanos as Adalgisa and Montserrat Caballe as Norma.

Early morning music

Kevin Steel — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:46:36 +0000

Here’s a Christmas nostalgia pill, a classic for certain people of a certain age; on YouTube, on vinyl at 33 RPM, the 1958 version of The Little Drummer Boy performed by The Harry Simeone Chorale.

Early morning music

Kevin Steel — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:36:27 +0000

This is a little nostalgia nugget I dug up for my father the other day at his request: The Merry Minuet by the Kingston Trio. It’s an old song–written in 1958 and recorded a year later–so I’m sure it’s irrelevant today.

Internet revived the radio star

Kevin Steel — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:35:30 +0000

Here’s a site worth bookmarking if you enjoy listening to old radio programs, the OTR Network Library, with over 12,000 shows readily available in streaming .ram files. Besides all the drama and comedy–neatly arranged alphabetically on the main page and then chronologically on the back pages–there are vintage news and sports broadcasts; sections I would like to see expanded. (Note: pictured here is Bob Bailey, star of the long running show, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, one of my favourites.)

An evening at the pops

Kevin Steel — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 23:49:10 +0000

One of my favourite vinyl records within my reach when I was little–besides the one I mention here–was a Living Stereo recording of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops playing Rossini’s Overture to William Tell on one side, and Tchaikovsky’s Slavonic March on the other (here’s a CD reissue). As children of the time, my siblings and I instantly recognized in the fourth section of the Rossini the theme music for the TV show The Lone Ranger. But it was from that record that my father taught us to appreciate and anticipate with equal excitement the second section, The Storm, and the swiftly moving dark clouds heard in the lower brass. I can recall with great clarity dad holding in his hands an imaginary trombone, pumping the slide and saying, “ta ta ta ta taaa” as the music exploded and the maelstrom blew through our little heads.

I have always liked the idea of the pops orchestra… oh who am I kidding, I went through an elitist phase where I abhorred all “vulgarizations” in art; that was before it dawned on me that it’s a big ol’ world with lots of room for many different things. In the language of music, the symphony orchestra is the prescriptivist element, and the pops the descriptivist. (And experimental modernist symphonic music–you know, where the pianist suddenly stands up and sticks his head under the lid of the grand to start plucking the strings, or stuff by John Cage–is the Esperanto. For an optimistic explanation of Esperanto check out this Wikipedia entry; “Today, Esperanto is employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, television….” Okay, whatever, it’s a big ol’ world).

But back to the pops. If I were picking the program for an evening of pops music, I would open with the main theme of the 1974 BBC series World at War by Carl Davis and continue with a few more selections from that show. Next would be selections from the Sherlock Holmes TV Soundtrack by Patrick Gowers. After intermission, a choir would join the orchestra on stage and the second half of the evening would be devoted to Ennio Morricone, starting with Once Upon a Time in the West and finishing with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Then I would book a bus and take the show on a tour to cash in on boomer nostalgia.

No exception to the rule

Kevin Steel — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:08:10 +0000

Someone just posted this on YouTube, a live version of “Everybody Plays the Fool,” a 1972 hit by the original group, The Main Ingredient. I was a little boy when it came out, and I believe it wasn’t too long after this song hit the charts that I proved for the first–but certainly not for the only–time in my life that the title is indeed factual and cruel. If there is a soundtrack to everyone’s life, this would probably be the 2nd track on the CD of mine.

[Note: the video was taken down. I’ve replaced it with this Soul Train appearance. “Right on, Diane Jones.”]