Curio Cabinet / Song Curio

It's Flashback Friday. Walk, run… enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives!
 

In the early '70s, few people could claim to be cooler than Lou Reed. The musician's rep was well-established with critics and musicians due to his formation of the highly influential Velvet Underground in the late '60s, and the fact that he was a regular at New York punk clubs and Andy Warhol's Factory studio. Unfortunately, coolness didn't translate to radio play for Reed, until he recorded Walk on the Wild Side. As fans of Reed's music, David Bowie and his guitarist Mick Ronson helped produce Reed's second solo effort, Transformer, an album with glam rock arrangements to round out Reed's lyrical observations of New York. Walk on the Wild Side paired a catchy upright bass riff with shuffling rhythms in the guitar and drums, as Reed nonchalantly delivered lines about uninhibited characters he'd met at Warhol's Factory. In celebration of the late musician's 77th birthday in March, we're listening to the hit song that immortalized 1970s New York, and made Lou Reed a rock radio staple.

 

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Image credit & copyright: Waring Abbott/Getty Images
 

Nobody sang the blues as honestly as Bessie Smith did. Born into abject poverty and segregation, Smith was belting on the streets as a 10-year-old to help feed her siblings after her parents died. At 16, she met blues legend Ma Rainey and begun touring, singing around melodies and phrasing as she saw poetically fit—a style later adopted by jazz improvisers. In the below footage of Smith performing St. Louis Blues (1929), her only video recording, she bemoans loving a two-timing gambler. Forceful but finessed lines such as "Wasn't for powder and the store-bought hair / The man I love wouldn't go nowhere, nowhere!" rise from her lungs with the gravity of sacred gospels, but her situation remains melancholic, even as the sorrowful chorus joins in with solidarity. Smith's aching style, characterized by a tendency to inspire both joy and misery, was shaped by a brutal life ridden with betrayal and torment. For all her troubles, Smith earned the title of the "Empress of the Blues," as well as the respect and adoration of Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin, and Janis Joplin—quite the audience for her royal majesty.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Carl Van Vechten Photograph Collection/Library of Congress
 

Last week's Grammy Awards were awash with new and veteran musical talents, though one of the best performances of the night arguably went to the sister duo Chloe x Halle. Singing Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack's duet, Where is the Love, the two showed off their thrilling harmonizing: a talent that first caught the attention of Beyoncé Knowles, who signed the two after watching their YouTube cover of her song Pretty Hurts in 2015. Since then, the two have received direct mentorship from Knowles, worked on a charity single for Michelle Obama's Let Girls Learn campaign, and recently sang America the Beautiful at the Super Bowl. The young women were up for Best New Artist at this year's Grammys after releasing The Kids Are Alright, their debut album which features the track Warrior—originally written for the film A Wrinkle in Time. A basic synth riff accompanies bigger and bolder percussive chants, perfectly capturing the hero's courageous journey in Wrinkle. Chloe x Halle may not have taken home the Best New Artist Grammy, but their standout singing no doubt earned them a great number of new fans on Sunday night.

 

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Image credit & copyright: Getty / Lester Cohen
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Presidents’ Day Weekend.
 

In honor of Presidents' Day weekend, we're trying our best to remember all 45. It ain't easy, but it helps to have a song. That's where Genevieve Madeline Ryan comes in. The lawyer-poet (what a combination!) wrote the lyrics to The American Presidents when she was 12 as a gift to her dad for Father's Day. Which is a weird gift, but an amazing one for a dad who's a history buff! With the encouragement of her folks, Ryan contacted some helpers to verify the lyrics' accuracy, arrange orchestration, and publish the song. The video below was produced by the White House Historical Association in 2010. We hate to break it to them, but they're going need to make an update for President Trump!  

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Nothing says love like a Puccini aria, even in one of his least-known operas. The one-act Gianni Schicchi was inspired by a character in Dante Alighieri's Inferno who is condemned to hell for impersonating (his friend) Buoso Donati and altering his will. In the beginning of Puccini's comic opera, Schicchi is approached by the Donatis to aid in altering Buoso's will, which left a fortune all to a local monastery. After the Donatis insult Schicchi and his humble upbringing, it is his daughter Lauretta who sings the tender aria O mio babbino caro ("O My Dear Father") to plead her case for falling in love with Rinuccio Donati and helping his family recover their wealth and honor. With a gentle and wistful plea, accompanied by the most heartfelt strings and harp section of the orchestra, Lauretta makes a case her father can't refuse. Even if it means taking his time to enact a bit of cold revenge against the Donatis, leaving himself with the best bits of Buoso's fortune—and situating his daughter as a wealthy, ready-to-marry woman!

 

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Image credit & copyright: Teatro Verdi Trieste
 

In the world of piano virtuosity and one-upmanship, things don't get much showier than Leopold Godowsky's Chopin Study Op.10 No. 9, 3rd Study in F# Minor. Firstly, the entire complex Étude by Chopin has been transposed (changed keys) to F# Minor, a fairly tasking key to play. Oh, and all parts originally written for the right hand are now solely the work of the left hand, on top of what that hand already has to play. Sounds tough? It's likely Godowsky would've liked it that way. Born on this day in 1870, the self-taught pianist was considered one of the greatest performers in the world during his lifetime, which gave him a bit of a stubborn chip on his shoulder. When Godowsky unleashed his ultra-difficult versions of the Chopin Studies, the composer Harold C. Schonberg called them "the most impossibly difficult things ever written for the piano." Are they excessive? Of course, but in the right hands—or hand—even the most impossibly difficult piece can begin to sound like the lightest flowing fare.
 

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It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Before he baffled his friends and listeners with his controversial comments on Twitter, Kanye West was "[acting] a fool" for his mom, Dr. Donda West. From the 2005 album Late Registration, Hey Mama marked a departure for Kanye: instead of the braggadocious-yet-self-conscious spirit he usually brought to his songs, West told the story of the struggles he and his mother faced together after they moved to Chicago when he was three years old. Set to a sing-along sample of Today Won't Come Again by Donal Leace, West recounted cold winters where his mother would make him warm chicken soup, and days when he would hold her as she was overwhelmed by a bad breakup. After Donda's untimely passing in 2007, Kanye paid her tribute by performing Hey Mama alongside a moving string quartet at the 50th Grammy Awards, before later dedicating portions of his subsequent tours to her. As this year's Grammy approaches, we're taking a listen to the song that highlights the special bond between a rapper and his matriarchal role model.
 

Below: a home video of West singing Hey Mama to Donda, and a special performance of the track on Oprah.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Getty Images
 

When the Beatles landed on U.S. soil for the first time on February 7, 1964, on the heels of their #1 single I Want to Hold Your Hand, no other British act had staying power on the American singles charts. By the end of '64, the band would have dozens of tracks dominating the U.S. airwaves. The Beatles actually had a hard time, too, when their first record label deal in the U.S. went nowhere. A change to Capitol and a fortunate spotlight on the CBS Evening News in December of 1963 caused radio DJs to be flooded with calls for I Want to Hold Your Hand. The track was originally written by Lennon and McCartney on piano and organ, trading rockin' riffs as they did in their early days. Its innocent-sounding pop lyricism belied Lennon's technical inspiration for the "I can't hide, I can't hide…" repetitive turnarounds: With the Beatles photographer Robert Freeman was Lennon's neighbor in London, turning the Beatle on to French experimental music and tracks that sounded as if the record needle was skipping. With such eclectic tastes early in their careers, it's no wonder there's a Sgt. Pepper's inner-groove repetition, or a White Album "number 9, number 9…" in the Beatles' catalog!
 

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Image credit & copyright: Ultimate Classic Rock
 

50 years ago on this day, guitarist Eric Clapton said a farewell—or rather, a Goodbye album—to his '60s supergroup Cream. The split was hardly amicable, as bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker's squabbles had tainted the band's work for years. So when it came time for Clapton to contribute a song to Goodbye, instead of looking to his quarreling bandmates, he turned to one of his best friends, Beatles guitarist George Harrison. Together they composed the odd rocker Badge, which begins with a minor key vamp beneath the verses. After the second verse, a happier, major key section kicks in with the very Beatles-esque sustained tones (changing chords while maintaining similar, droning notes within), and Clapton's signature solo finishes up the detour. With a song title conceived when Clapton misread Harrison's "bridge" song notes (and Ringo's lyrical contributions about swans living in the park!), the Cream guitarists' work with the band was finalized. But don't worry, no guitars were found gently weeping in the making of Badge.

 

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Image credit & copyright: Reddit
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this pink favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

There's no cause for facepalms when talking about the success of Pink Floyd's epic Dark Side of the Moon. The concept album was hatched by singer Roger Waters as an exploration of things that "make people mad." The band honed their arrangements during live performances and spent two sessions in '72 and '73 recording innovative multitrack parts at the Beatles' Abbey Road Studios. The closer songs Brain Damage and Eclipse were often treated as a single piece of music in radio play, covering metaphorical themes of light and darkness in life, and mental illness—the later inspired by former bandmate Syd Barrett's erratic behaviors. Like viewing an eclipse, many listeners thought Dark Side of the Moon was amazing, so much that the record spent a jaw-dropping 700 weeks on the Billboard charts, and sold 45 million records. Recently, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has taken the title of Pink Floyd's album to task, stating all parts of the Moon actually receive sunlight. Though he's scientifically correct, we probably wouldn't trade Pink Floyd's mysterious lunar theme for the more accurate Gary Larson-esque title Far Side of the Moon!
 

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Image credit & copyright: Storm Thorgerson
 

The Beatles may have been the first to popularize backwards recordings, but no one had audiences singing a reverse chorus like Missy Elliott did in 2007. Her furiously creative track Work It features the lyric "Ti esrever dna ti pilf, nwod gniht ym tup," which, at the time, sounded like Elliott tapping into a subconscious language as part of her southern rap psychedelia. Turns out the line was actually a reversal of the previous line's "put my thing down, flip it and reverse it." At one point during the recording, a studio engineer accidentally played the track backwards, which caused Elliott to say "Yo, keep that in there and I'm going to write around it." Backed by space-y sounding synths and a syncopated rhythm sample from Blondie's Heart of Glass, Elliott plays with time on the track like it's a record on a turntable—meant to be stopped, reversed, scratched, and spun in a way no one has ever heard before.

 

Explicit content warning: this video contains strong language.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Missy Elliott
 

At the onset of World War II, no musical act sold war bonds and inspired the troops quite like the rollicking Andrews Sisters. Lead by youngest sister Patty, who died on January 30, 2013, the trio produced 46 top 10 hits, including the wartime carol Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. Trussed by a gamboling rhythm, the tune tells the story of a Chicago street musician who gets drafted into the army as a bugler, only to infuse the morning reveille with his boogie-woogie style. As the sisters deliver the narrative, Patty's cheeky mezzo-soprano holds center presence, while sisters LaVerne and Maxene's contralto and soprano supply rich harmony. The tune, which ranks sixth on the NEA and RIAA's Songs of the Century, was just one of many hits that made the sisters the best-selling female vocal group of their era, with 75 million records sold. Other Andrews achievements included introducing calypso to the American mainstream with their cover of Lord Invader's Rum and Coca Cola, as well as appearing in 17 films and recording 47 duets with Bing Crosby—including Pistol Packin' Mama and Jingle Bells. In honor of such an enduring legacy, join us today as we jump eight-to-the-bar in memory of the Andrews Sisters!
 

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Image credit & copyright: Everett Collection / Rex Feature
 

Behind every great Motown hit is some great bass playing—specifically by James Jamerson on his "Funk Machine" 1962 Fender Precision Bass. While audiences clamored for the next song by singers Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, or Stevie Wonder, the studio whizzes in Detroit and Los Angeles relied on Jamerson and the rest of the house band, nicknamed The Funk Brothers, to lay down undeniable grooves. Jamerson, who played on at least 30 Billboard #1's, was known for revolutionizing the way bass playing sounded on R&B songs. Prior to Jamerson, bassists filled out the rhythm section by playing chord roots and fifths; on tracks like Stevie Wonder's For Once in My Life, Jamerson shows off a style that's syncopated, follows the ascending melody, and utilizes open strings (unfretted string notes) and other techniques from his days as an upright bass player in jazz groups. For Jamerson's birthday this week, we're reminded of how Motown producers would halt production on a track when he wasn't available—because why even try to replace one of the 20th century's most inventive musical voices?

 

Below: the complete Stevie Wonder recording of For Once in My Life. Beneath that is a video of the isolated bass track, performed by James Jamerson.
 

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Step aside Squidward—the clarinet king has arrived. English musician Bernard "Acker" Bilk, shown above wearing his signature goatee and striped waistcoat, achieved the unthinkable in 1962 when his tender clarinet instrumental Stranger on the Shore became the first British single to top the U.S. charts. Originally titled Jenny after his daughter, Stranger places Bilk's mid-register clarinet front row and center, with curtains of shimmering vibrato raining from its pleasant, if not downright arresting, melody. By the time Bilk found fame in the early '60s, after learning how to play the clarinet in the service of Britain's Royal Engineers in Egypt, rock 'n' roll had all but supplanted jazz as the "it" genre. But unlike jazz avant-gardists who retreated into seclusion, catering to niche audiences, Bilk continued to draw mass appeal with a pop-driven, accessible sound. His dreamy Stranger clung to the U.K.'s charts for over 50 weeks and went on to become the country's best-selling record of 1962, pushing two million units. Today, it seems improbable—nay, impossible—that a middle-aged clarinetist could outjockey rock 'n' roll in its rebellious heyday; but somehow Bilk did just that.
 

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Image credit & copyright: UPPA
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this toothy favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

As the inspiration for the Muppets' Dr. Teeth, Dr. John is quite the character. The New Orleans pianist, who was born on November 21st, 1941, began his career playing guitar in the '50s. After a move to Los Angeles in the '60s, Dr. John started developing his Creole medicine stage persona, wearing elaborate headpieces and putting on voodoo-inspired performances. At that point, he was serving as a sessions musician for Sonny & Cher, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Zappa, among others. By the time he struck out on his own, Dr. John had friends in high places who could add their talent to his work. Produced by fellow New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint, Right Place, Wrong Time features the good doctor's raspy voice over psychedelic lyrics about losing one's mind—with lines contributed by Bette Midler and Bob Dylan. For a song about bad timing and bad luck, it became one of Dr. John's biggest hits and solidified his place as one of the Big Easy's biggest talents.

 

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Image credit & copyright: Dr. John, Bruce Weber

Political bands didn't get much bigger than Midnight Oil in the '80s. The group honed their rock chops in Australian clubs, attaining global success with songs like Blue Sky Mine before lead singer Peter Garrett began a second career pursuing a role in Parliament. The transition wasn't so far off, as Blue Sky Mine shows off Garrett's relentless energy and fight for the rights of the powerless. The song's urgent guitar and harmonica opener pave the way for Garrett and bandmates' lyrics about blue asbestos miners at Wittenoom, Western Australia. The workers often suffered debilitating illnesses like lung cancer and mesothelioma from breathing in the mineral's dust—and if that wasn't bad enough, living in an exploitive "company town" owned by the Colonial Sugar Company ensured goods prices were high and wages were low enough to prevent any upward social mobility. For Midnight Oil, the subject matter was worthy of solidarity, as Garrett used his platform to launch successful bids for the Australian Senate, where the subject matter that fueled his songs became the inspiration to enact legislation in support of those who are often voiceless in big political battles.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Midnight Oil
 

Rhiannon Giddens has been a busy musician, touring on top of one of 2017's best-reviewed albums Freedom Highway and becoming a MacArthur Genius Grant-winner in the same timespan. This past month, she announced a new project called Songs of Our Native Daughters, a Smithsonian Folkways collaboration with fellow folksingers Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell (from Birds of Chicago). Their first single is the harrowing Mama's Cryin' Long, which contains lyrics that follow a child's chant about her slave mother killing her overseer, and later being lynched for the crime. Heartbreaking lyrics aside, the murder ballad (folk songs dealing with death, sometimes with contradictory upbeat music) shows off a call-and-response narrative between the vocalists set against a syncopated rhythm. The results are sparse yet powerful, gorgeous and haunting—exactly the tone Giddens and crew are going with for Songs of Our Native Daughters, which is described as a collection of "early minstrelsy and banjo music" paired with slave narratives and other sources as a commentary on black female histories and identities. If Mama's Cryin' Long is any indicator, the record is sure to be unforgettable, and a much-needed lesson on an underrepresented part of American history.

 

Below: a mini-documentary on the making of Mama's Cryin' Long.
 

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Image credit & copyright: Terri Fensel, Our Native Daughters
 

When Jazz veteran Charles Lloyd decided to form a bluesy band called The Marvels, there was only one voice he could turn to in capturing the haunted southern sound: singer Lucinda Williams. On the waltzy tune We've Come Too Far to Turn Around, Williams lends a gritty gospel-edge to the track, as Lloyd's saxophone reaches something like transcendence. While The Marvels have worked with a number of country and western vocalists, Lloyd has remarked of Williams that "her sound is like an emotional barometer… Sometimes it swirls around in the tempest of a storm and sometimes it is sweet and pure as a Southern breeze carrying the intoxicating perfume of magnolia to you." With such a deep musical connection fostered between the two, it's no wonder their recent album Vanished Gardens was featured on dozens of Best of the Year jazz lists. We've Come Too Far and the rest of the tracks have all the markings of songs both great and slightly intangible.

 

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Image credit & copyright: Lucinda Williams
 

In the world of jazz singing, no one ever threw shade at a cheating lover quite like Nancy Wilson did, especially in her 1960 hit version of Guess Who I Saw Today. Wilson, who passed away just last month at the age of 81, mustered all of her smooth-voiced tenderness—learned from her heroes, Dinah Washington and Nat "King" Cole—to lyrics which increasingly reveal a narrator righteously losing her composure. The performance was a breakthrough for Wilson, who enjoyed a 60-year career as a jazz singer with popular appeal, winning Jazz, R&B, and Pop Vocal Grammys, as well as an NEA "Jazz Masters Fellowship" endowment. She even won a Peabody award as the voice and historian of NPR's Jazz Profiles. In music, it seemed like there was nothing outside of Wilson's reach—which didn't bode well for the cheating partner in Guess Who I Saw Today, who clearly underestimated her capabilities!

 

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Image credit & copyright: Ron Kroon / Anefo
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this fowl favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Stax Records is responsible for countless hits—such as Sitting' on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding, Soul Man by Sam and Dave, or I'll Take You There by the Staple Singers. But there's one thing in common with these songs besides their distributor: the Stax house band. So it's no surprise that when a few members struck out on their own, the resulting music was just as funky and soulful. Known as Booker T. & the MG's, the group consisted of drummer Al Jackson, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, guitarist Steve Cropper, and keyboardist Booker T. Jones. They formed more or less because of their breakthrough hit, Green Onions. The song originated as a jam between the four prior to recording a jingle session, and it went on to hit #3 on the Billboard charts when it was released. It's the only instrumental song on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time," and in 2012 it was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry as a historically important piece of music. But you don't really need fancy awards to tell you how good the song is (although those are pretty sweet). Take a listen to the group playing the eternally cool groove as part of the "Stax/Volt Revue Live In Norway 1967."
 

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