HOLLYWOOD EDEN
Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise
By Joel Selvin
Elsewhere in town, nepotism was reaping rewards. Another Uni High graduate, Nancy Sinatra, had been signed in 1961 to Reprise Records, owned by her father, Frank Sinatra. After four years of bland, inconsequential singles, Frank paired her with the producer Lee Hazlewood, who had masterminded a string of raunchy-sounding hits for the guitarist Duane Eddy. Toughened into the guise of a bleached-blond Malibu carhop, Nancy scored a No. 1 hit with Hazlewood's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" — a song, Selvin writes, that "wasn't meant to be sung as much as sneered."
'It has stood the test of time': was 1971 the greatest year in music? | Documentary | The Guardian
V olume is paramount on the new Apple docuseries 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, both in the play-it-loud sense as well as the sheer-quantity sense. The watershed social and artistic moment explored across the eight episodes contained a staggering amount of genius, to the point that an interview quickly dissolves into the same awed name-cataloguing one might expect to hear around a college radio station or independent record shop.
"It's a predictable answer," executive producer James Gay-Rees tells the Guardian, "but my favorite is What's Going On, really one of the greatest songs of all time."
"We bought all the discussed records on vinyl, listened to them fully through as cohesive works, and at different times, different ones became my favorite," explains episode director James Rogan. "I had a phase with Hunky Dory, one with Bill Withers' Just As I Am. As single songs go, What's Going On was massive for me as well."
It's easy to imagine them continuing this for several hours, probably with a case of beers and a good set of speakers.
"When we got into the research, it became apparent what a seminal, transitional year this was," Gay-Rees says. "The 60s had ended so badly – Kent State, Altamont, Charles Manson, the Beatles breaking up. It felt like there was a tonal shift to this golden age of paranoia. We all did a lot of reading around it, we being a team of 15 people beyond us, all in an open-plan office kicking around ideas all the time.
"It became really exciting when we realized there might be a different way to approach a music documentary, because we didn't want to do the Behind the Music type thing. There's a place for that, but it's not our specialty."
"We didn't have a gargantuan amount of money to make the series with," adds Gay-Rees. "It was a massive challenge, honestly. We dived right into the deep end. We'd tell the creative team regularly, 'Don't panic. Just go for the most creative version of each episode that you can, and leave the music to us.' I said that in blind ignorance. At the time, I had no idea how we'd bring it all in."
He took time to develop relationships to talent and the stewards of late greats' estates, convincing many to lease out their songs for a nominal fee or free of charge. Once the producers had earned their subjects' trust, even the most guarded legends recognized a noble goal worthy of their goodwill. "The Rolling Stones, John Lennon's people?" he says. "They don't need us. We're not at the top of their to-do list, so you have to chip away."
The series eschews the usual talking-head interview segments, instead jam-packing every episode with archival filmstrips from front to back. Snippets of disembodied voiceover blur the line between the excavated audio from the period and the soundbites the directors harvested themselves in the present day. As Kapadia would have it, the cohering effect was intentional. "We've been making archive-driven films for a while now, and the whole idea is to make everything feel like part of the same universe," he says. "You shouldn't be able to mark them, 'Oh, that's a period sample, and oh, that's a contemporary one.' The whole thing should be in the moment, 1971 as the present. We don't cut from people now, older, to their younger beautiful selves. The whole thing is about being there, walking down the street in 1971."
New Music Friday: The Top 6 Albums Out On May 21 : All Songs Considered : NPR
Allison Russell's new album is called Outside Child . Francesca Cepero/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
We open this week's show with Olivia Rodrigo, the actress-turned-pop star whose debut single "Drivers License" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks earlier this year. Now, she's released her debut album Sour , which expands Rodrigo's template to include Taylor Swift ian acoustic folk and jagged, '90s-inspired pop-punk. Patrick Paige II, the bassist for the experimental R&B group The Internet , has a new album of clever and creative hip-hop called If I Fail, Are We Still Cool? And Allison Russell, known as one-half of Birds of Chicago and one-fourth of Our Native Daughters , just released a thoughtful and beautiful, deeply reflective, ultimately triumphant solo collection called Outside Child .
Albums by funky and inventive multi-hyphenate Georgia Anne Muldrow , clever singer-rapper Audrey Nuna and rising Danish pop and R&B star Erika de Casier round out the mix, along with a lightning round full of big stars and intriguing discoveries. Joined by Alt.Latino 's Anamaria Sayre, NPR Music producer Bobby Carter, WXPN's John Morrison and 88Nine Radio Milwaukee's Tarik Moody, guest host Stephen Thompson shares the gang's picks for the best new albums out May 21.
Wallingford music program connects local youth with Mexican heritage
For the past 11 years, the Spanish Community of Wallingford has helped children stay connected to their Mexican heritage through a music program featuring dance, singing and traditional instruments.
Yazim Lopez, who was previously part of the music program and graduated with a degree in music from Western Connecticut State University, continues to visit and help students in the program.
"The purpose of this program is to teach students about their culture and about their roots," Mendoza said. "Aside from learning music from their culture, this is also helping strengthen their Spanish. These children will always have a music foundation they can turn to. It will build their confidence and they become a social group."
Mexican and Latin American students can immerse themselves in their culture at the SCOW School of Music. The program has been known for forming the Mariachi Academy of Connecticut which has performed all over the state. Students perform using the traditional Mariachi instruments. There is a dance group that dances the Sevillana from Spain, a type of folk dance influenced by Flamenco.
Mariachi is a type of traditional Mexican folk music using the vihuela Mexicana, guitarrón, harp, violin, guitar, trumpet, and voice.
Prior to the pandemic, Mendoza continued to work with students on a private basis with piano lessons, violin lessons and singing lessons. When the pandemic happened, everything had to stop until she received a call about a youth Mariachi group that needed help.
Since September, Mendoza has been working with two Mariachi groups one beginner level and the other advanced. Mendoza has worked with the Director of the Mariachi Academy of New York City to conduct workshops with the students at SCOW as well.
Supervisor of Language & Community Partnerships for Meriden Public Schools, Evelyn Robles Rivas sees the music school at SCOW as an international family that celebrates a rich culture.
The music program is hoping to start a new Mariachi in September. For more information contact SCOW at (203) 265-5866.
What's Going On? 50 Years Ago, The Answer Was Bigger Than Marvin Gaye : NPR
In his book Never a Dull Moment: 1971 — The Year That Rock Exploded , writer David Hepworth makes the case for his subject as "the busiest, most creative, most innovative, most interesting, and longest-resounding year of that era." But even that may be an understatement when considered in the context of the extraordinary flowering of Black musical expression that year. Established veterans like The Temptations and The Isley Brothers were altering their sound, as exemplified in the Isleys' cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's " Ohio ," a song written in response to the 1970 shootings at Kent State. Away from the pop charts, Miles Davis, The Chambers Brothers, Roberta Flack, The Last Poets and Alice Coltrane were unleashing a vision of Black music whose sound and form was every bit as political as the lyrics. The spirit of the '60s lingered, but the tone of Black protest had changed — and some artists, like many activists, were no longer invested in presenting their demands with the elixirs of decorum and civility.
Yet it was on the deep cut " Wholy Holy ," a ballad co-written with Motown songwriter Al Cleveland and Obie Benson of The Four Tops, where the artist may have found his most militant voice. Gaye's line, "We can rock the world's foundation," at once acknowledges the power of Black music as a political force and anticipates that power rising to meet even greater challenges.
Fifty years after its release, What's Going On remains the most elegant response to this tumultuous era, but at least a few of Gaye's peers were responding with equal gravitas, while adding a level of raw emotion that was never going to be sanctioned at Motown.
But Stone, like Gaye, was railing against a label's constraints — in his case, CBS Records and executive Clive Davis, who wanted a new album with hit singles in 1970. Stone gave Davis just three songs, among them the iconic "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," which ended up on a greatest hits package that remains their biggest seller. When he finally turned in the full-length follow-up to Stand! , it was clear that crossover appeal was not the first thing on Stone's mind at the moment. There's a Riot Goin' On (originally titled Africa Talks to You ), released in November 1971, sounded nothing like the group's previous work. Even its big hit, " Family Affair " — recorded with Stone's sister Rose on vocals, Billy Preston on keyboards and Bobby Womack on guitar — was a pop outlier, built around the unfamiliar pulse of the Maestro Rhythm King MRK-2, an early drum machine.
In Never a Dull Moment , Hepworth writes that upon its release, There's a Riot Goin' On sounded to many "like a collection of demos with placeholder vocal parts and riffs that often trailed off into incoherence." And that may have been Stone's point. If Gil Scott-Heron, who had released the definitive version of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" that spring, was asserting that Black revolt would exist beyond the gaze of mass media, Sly Stone seemed to coyly suggest that it might not be heard on radio airwaves either — hence the title track, four seconds of stony silence. By his watch, the political realities of the moment demanded that Black artists resist the indulgences of artistic perfection, while also producing music that in its openness could be a blueprint for what was to come next.
Befitting this singular year, what was next was already happening. In March of 1971, Melvin Van Peebles premiered Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, a film he wrote, financed, directed and starred in. Though the guerilla production was hailed by none other than Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton for its depiction of one Black man's transformation into the revolutionary vanguard, it quickly eased into cult status. Gordon Parks, the legendary photographer and filmmaker, followed that summer with Shaft , a Hollywood affair with a less radical edge but just as much style. The two Blaxploitation touchstones, like the wave of films that came in their wake, had a limited cultural footprint at the time. But both made a lasting impact on Black entertainment going forward, not least because of how they sounded.
Shaft featured a score written and produced by Isaac Hayes, Stax Records' most prominent star, and anchored by the single " Theme from Shaft ," which topped the pop charts and earned Hayes a best original song Oscar the following year. More than that, the album's success pointed to a lane where other Black musicians might succeed as well, the soundtrack format a vessel for aesthetic risks they couldn't take elsewhere. In 1972, Curtis Mayfield pushed the form forward with Super Fly (directed by Parks' son, Gordon Parks Jr.), the first of several soundtracks he would produce throughout the 1970s. Even Marvin Gaye got in on the action with his largely instrumental Trouble Man , also released in '72.
As for Sweetback , the auteurist Van Peebles composed its score himself — but the music was performed by a then-unknown Earth, Wind & Fire, who also released its eponymous debut and The Need of Love that same year. Maurice White's kaleidoscopic ensemble, more than anyone, personified a middle ground between Gaye and Stone's approaches. Within a few years, the group secured a spot in the pop mainstream with a catalog of Black cultural nationalism shrouded in uplift themes ("Devotion," "Keep Your Head to the Sky," "That's the Way of the World,") and a lush use of brass and strings that was greatly indebted to What's Going On .
White and company weren't the only ones paying attention to the business as well as the music: You could see the same instincts at play as struggling songwriter/producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff finally got the financial backing they needed, courtesy of Clive Davis and CBS, to launch their own label that year. Philadelphia International Records' roster would eventually include soul powerhouses The O'Jays, Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes, MFSB, The Three Degrees, Lou Rawls, The Jones Girls and Teddy Pendergrass — all under an abiding claim that "The message is in the music." The label's dominance throughout the 1970s guaranteed that the Black musical revolt of 1971 would keep on reverberating.
Fredonia School of Music Wind Ensemble completing historic recording project | Fredonia.edu
Project principals include (left to right) Dr. Paula Holcomb, SUNY Fredonia's Director of Bands; Dan Perantoni, tuba; Bernd Gottinger, recording engineer and coordinator of Fredonia's Sound Recording Technology area; Jim Stephenson, composer and producer; and Gail Williams, horn.
The Fredonia School of Music has announced details of the final phase of a multi-year recording project by the Fredonia Wind Ensemble.
The effort was funded by The Sorel Medallion in Recording Grant and the Carnahan Jackson Foundation, both through the Fredonia College Foundation, as well as a Sigma Alpha Iota Project Grant.
The wind ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Paula Holcomb, commissioned a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Augusta Read Thomas, featuring bassoonist Nadina Mackie Jackson, the Canadian Best Classical Album winner in 2020.
Ms. Thomas' work will be premiered and recorded by the Fredonia Wind Ensemble in April 2022, under the direction of Dr. Holcomb, who is Fredonia's Director of Bands. The project is a collaboration between the students of the wind ensemble and the school's Sound Recording Technology area under the direction of Coordinator Bernd Gottinger, a GRAMMY-nominated recording engineer.
The project, which began in 2016, has a primary goal of raising awareness about and filling the need for quality women composers and artists in the wind ensemble genre, as well as showcasing the Fredonia Wind Ensemble and Sound Recording Technology area.
In honoring the vision of the late Claudette Sorel, a piano faculty member in the Fredonia School of Music who was appointed a SUNY Distinguished Professor, the Fredonia Wind Ensemble Recording Project features internationally renowned female composers and artists who provide a diversified voice for the wind ensemble genre. The Sorel Organization's mission is, "to expand opportunities and stretch the boundaries for women musicians in the fields of conducting, composition, film scoring, performance, arts leadership, education, and scholarship."
"The genre of wind ensemble music needs a more diversified voice with respect to both composers and performers of quality repertoire," added Dr. Holcomb. "The need for the female voice is particularly glaring."
"It is truly an honor to work with the Fredonia Wind Ensemble and Sound Recording Technology department as they rise to meet the challenges of performing and recording with these world-renowned musicians," commented Dr. Holcomb. "They are relentless in their zeal for excellence and passion for music. With the deepest of gratitude, we thank the [Elizabeth and Michel] Sorel Charitable Organization, Sigma Alpha Iota and Carnahan Jackson organization, who are opening doors for many young musicians at Fredonia while also supporting the development of quality, diverse wind ensemble repertoire."
Spotify finally adds offline music downloads on Apple Watch - The Verge
2021 Billboard Music Awards Performers, Presenters: Full List | Billboard
It's time for the 2021 Billboard Music Awards! To help get you ready for the big event Sunday (May 23), we've compiled the complete list of performers and presenters who'll be taking the stage for the show.
One highly anticipated performance is that of global superstars BTS . The K-pop group will be taking the stage remotely from South Korea to perform their brand new single, " Butter ," which dropped on Friday (May 21). It will be the boy band's debut performance of their second English-language single.
The Weeknd , who is a finalist in 16 categories, will also be taking the stage, as will Icon Award recipient P!nk . Drake is set to be honored with the Artist of the Decade Award, while Trae The Truth will take home Change Maker Award. As previously announced, Tina Knowles-Lawson will be presenting Trae with his award.
NFTs: Are they the future of the music industry? - BBC News
What unites electronic producers 3LAU and Steve Aoki with Nashville rockers Kings of Leon and alternative artist Grimes?
No, it's not a mind-bending collaborative single. Instead, together they've each earned millions in recent months by selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), paid for in online crypto-currency.
This has sparked media and music industry buzz, but for many outside the bubble these terms still feel alien - causing eyes to glaze over in confusion.
In fact, non-fungible simply means unique. The token acts as a digital certificate of ownership for whatever the creator, in this case a musician, decides to put up for sale. This can be anything from a single traditional album, to a bundle including extras such as gig tickets and exclusive bonus tracks.
Fans buy NFTs through crypto-currency - online money that includes a record of who owns what, stored on a shared ledger known as the blockchain. The advantage for the artist is that they set the terms and can embed "smart contracts" that ensure a slice of any resale value.
Here comes the even stranger part: although each NFT sold is supposed to be one of a kind, its contents can still be shared, copied and sold to anyone further down the line. This means the NFT's value is defined in part by its scarcity - the lower the number, the higher the value, with the original copy often the most prized.
Anyone can own a print of the Mona Lisa, for example, but only one person can own the original hanging in the Louvre, even if it is seen by millions of people.
If the concept may seem odd right now, the financial bottom line is clear: there's potentially a lot of money to be made.
Grimes sold almost $6m (£4.2m) in NFTs in just 20 minutes; Steve Aoki sold a collection for about $4.25m (£3m); and Kings of Leon sold a batch for roughly $2m (£1,4m). 3LAU, an early crypto adopter, dwarfed all these by selling his NFT collection for $11.6m (£8.2m).
City-wide music event coming to Topeka | KSNT News
TOPEKA (KSNT) – A new city-wide music event is coming to the Capitol City next month. Visit Topeka and Evergy Plaza made the announcement Friday morning.
Topeka Music Week, June 18-26, will take place at multiple venues throughout the Capital City; these include Jayhawk Theatre, Red Bud Park at NOTO Arts & Entertainment District, White Concert Hall at Washburn University, Celtic Fox and Happy Basset Barrel House.
Our upper air patterns will continue to support chances for rain and thunderstorms today and for the next several days. We are expecting periods of dry weather in between the showers though with cloudy skies overhead. Highs this afternoon will reach the upper 70s with some spots seeing the lower 80s.
WASHINGTON (AP) — This year's Kennedy Center Honors may be a slimmed-down affair as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic — but honoree Dick Van Dyke still says it's "the capper on my career."
The 43rd class also includes country music legend Garth Brooks, dancer and choreographer Debbie Allen, singer-songwriter Joan Baez and violinist Midori. They were honored Friday night at a medallion ceremony that had been delayed from December 2020.
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