Author: Herman van den Bosch

Ik ben emeritus hoogleraar aan de Open Universiteit en hou me vooral bezig met de wijze waarop we onze leefomgeving op een humane en natuurinclusieve wijze kunnen inrichten. Mijn blogposts gaan over wisselende aspecten daarvan.
Posted on

The beginning of the end – The Beatles after the Beatles part 1

In September 1969, John Lennon announces that he will leave The Beatles. At the insistence of manager Klein, he refrained from making his departure public at that time. Paul McCartney did the same shortly afterwards. Incidentally, Ringo Starr and George Harrison had already discussed leaving soon.  George felt undervalued because only two of his songs were permitted to be included in each album. These were not the worst ones: “Taxman”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Within You Without You”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Something”. Ringo was becoming increasingly nervous about the comments on his drumming style from Paul, himself a talented drummer.

Growing artistic and personal differences

The Beatles’ break-up is the result of a series of mutually reinforcing developments. The role of John’s relationship with Yoko Ono is often exaggerated. Yoko was an artist with her own life. More important is that Paul gradually eclipsed John Lennon musically and commercially. This became apparent after the sudden death of manager Brian Epstein and his replacement by Allen Klein, who in fact ran the business into the ground. Paul was the only one to denounce this, even taking the matter to court, where he was proven right.  This mismanagement was particularly evident in the way Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, wasted capital on its ‘artist-oriented’ policy, which allowed each Beatle to pursue his hobbies. These were avant-garde projects by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, making electronic music by George Harrison, and producing films by Ringo Starr. The problems of Apple Corps are widely discussed in the 2021 documentary Get back.

The best band of all time

Anyone who discusses the break-up of the Beatles is mentioning the exceptional quality of their music between 1965 and 1967. The album Rubber Soul (1965) marks a watershed between the appealing pop the band played before and the later songs, which have the allure of art music. I devoted a separate blog post to art rock, psychedelic rock and its main exponents some time ago; read it here.

There were several reasons why the group was able to realise this ambition. First and foremost was the creativity of the members, followed by their broad musical background and, thirdly, their use of drugs. ‘Norwegian Wood’ is the most striking song on Rubber Soul. It deviates from what was common at the time in terms of melody structure, composition and instrumentation. It is the first song ever to feature a sitar. 

Listen to this song again, filmed during the recording of the album.

The Beatles become a studio band

When the Beatles decided to stop touring in 1966, they were able to focus on studio recordings and explore its the growing capabilities. The album Revolver (1967) was the first result of this. The song ‘Eleanor Rigby’ (here performed by Paul McCartney in 2007) once again illustrates the direction the group had taken in terms of melody and lyrics. The same applies to the singles released shortly afterwards, ‘Strawberry fields forever’ , and ‘Penny Lane’ (1967). The song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ opened the doors to psychedelic rock. Listen to it here:

‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ was less a new high point and more a confirmation of the path the Beatles have chosen and the consistency of the quality of their work. The same applies to ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and the albums that followed.

The Beatles opened themselves up to a wide variety of musical influences, like:

  • German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen: Revolution 9, I ‘am the Walrus
  • Music hall sounds from the 1920s: When I’m 64, ‘With a little help from my friends’, ‘Maxwell’s silver hammer’, ‘Honey pie’, ‘Your mother should know’ and ‘Lovey Rita’.
  • Classical music: the piccolo trumpet on ‘Penny Lane’, the piano intermezzo in ‘My Life’ and the guitar on ‘Blackbird’.
  • The use of different types of scales, in addition to the usual minor and major scales. You can hear the effect of this in ‘Norwegian Wood’, ‘Golden Slumbers’ and ‘We Can Work It Out’. In the last song, this effect is reinforced by a change in time signature from 4/4 to 3/4.
  • Religious music: The hymn-like structure of ‘Hey Jude‘. The acoustic guitar in ‘Blackbird’ is inspired by Bach’s Bourrée in E minor.
  • Folk music: ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Norwegian Wood’, ‘Dear Prudence’, ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’, ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’, ‘I Am a Loser’, ‘Two of Us’ and ‘Julia’
  • Indian music: ‘Within You Without You’ and ‘The Inner Light’ are entirely Indian. Indian influences can be found in: ‘Across the Universe’, ‘Sexy Sadie’, ‘Norwegian Wood’ (sitar), ‘Love You To’, ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’, ‘The Indian Drone’, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and ‘I Am The Walrus’.

Although Rubber Soul was the first comprehensive example of the new direction, the older song  ‘PS I love you’ already showed upcoming changes. Just listen to it:

Recognition for the Beatles as the best band ever

Just how good were the Beatles really? The 2019 edition of Billboard, by far the most important music magazine in the world, ranked the Beatles as the greatest popular music artists of all time, followed by the Rolling Stones in second place. The Beatles’ first place applies on almost all fronts: number of albums sold, number of top scores in the UK and the US, the quality of lyrics and music, instrumental and vocal quality of the band members and variety of repertoire. Only when it comes to lead vocals does Mick Jagger beat John and Paul.

In his book ‘The Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles’, Dominique Pedler shows how the harmonic patterns that the Beatles use and combine in their songs have never been used before in pop music and have since become exemplary. Many of these patterns originated in the ‘magical’ interaction between Paul and John. This collaboration makes them the most successful songwriting duo in modern music history. The dichotomy between Paul McCartney’s optimism and John Lennon’s realism forced both to outdo each other, resulting in the unprecedented production of 180 songs, the most albums sold by any artist, and a still unbroken record of 20 number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Lennon said he wanted to write a pop song like McCartney; McCartney said he always wanted to have Lennon’s skeptical view of sacred cows. Meanwhile, the value of the collaboration with George Harrison and Ringo Starr should not be overlooked. The Beatles were not called ‘the fabulous four’ for nothing, and Mick Jagger spoke of a four-headed monster.

Let it be

Back to 1969, the year the Beatles decided to split up. Their work was far from over, apart from the solo albums each of them was preparing. The coffers were empty and they were contractually obliged to deliver two more albums, which would be called ‘Let it be’ and ‘Abbey Road’. 

The band members agreed that the next album would be a ‘live’ performance. Paul was particularly keen on this idea, but in the end, all that remained was an unannounced performance on the roof of the Apple Corps building in London.

Writing new songs was the hardest part and led to further tension between the band members. Paul wrote the songs ‘Let it be’ and ‘Get back’, which would eventually end up on the album. As a result, there was nowhere near enough material when the ‘rooftop concert’ was due to take place. Despite all the problems and the fact that it was cold and bleak on the roof, the Beatles celebrated their (last) party. More and more people flocked to the Apple Corps building. Traffic came to a standstill and eventually the police put an end to it.

You can watch and listen to the entire ‘rooftop concert’ on 30 January 1969 in Central London here:

Abbey Road

The group decides to put the finishing touches to ‘Let it be’ on hold for a while – which appeared to be one year – and concentrate on the Abbey Road album. Everyone now seems to be back on track. George Harrison writes excellent songs: ‘Here comes the sun’ and ‘Something’; John writes ‘Come together’, Ringo comes up with ‘Octopus’s garden’, which becomes a resounding sing-along, and Paul writes ‘O Darling’ and ‘You never give me your money’, a swipe at manager Klein.  There are still a few short fragments and unfinished ideas left, and then the brilliant decision is made to combine them into a medley, which becomes an overview of what the Beatles have written in recent years. The medley ends with ‘The End’, a song with short guitar solos by each of the band members and a drum solo – his first te be recorded – by Ringo. Many fans consider this medley to be one of the highlights of the Beatles’ oeuvre. There is no filmed recording of the medley. You can listen to how it sounds on the album ‘Abbey Road’ here.

It might be interesting to watch and listen to a live performance as part of the Sheffield Beatles Project (cover). You can do so here: 

To finish the last album, ‘Let it be’, in addition to the songs played during the ‘rooftop concert’, a series of old unused songs are dug out and reworked. On 9 May 1970, the album hits the shops. By then, the Beatles are no longer together. Music critics praise both albums and, contrary to expectations, especially ‘Let it be’. 

Paul’s first solo album is released three weeks later, much to the annoyance of John, George and Ringo. Over time, they stop avoiding each other but they occasionally play on each other’s albums.

The Beatles after the Beatles

John, Paul, George and Ringo are determined to continue their musical careers as solo artists. They will each produce a considerable number of albums. According to critics, only a few of their songs come close to the work in the Beatles’ heyday. The main reason is the disappearance of the magic in the collaboration between John and Paul.

The albums of George Harrison (who died in 2001) are spiritual, melodious and perfectionist, with a penchant for world music, in which his love of Indian music is prominent. Paul makes melodious pop music and rock and is constantly searching for new forms. He misses the ‘band feeling’ and for this reason he forms the group Wings in 1972. John Lennon (murdered in 1981) wrote politically engaged songs with a very personal character, and Ringo did what he had never been allowed to do before and made party music.

The break-up of the band did not affect the members financially. Immediately after the band split up, each Beatle was worth between 10 and 20 million dollars. Their fortunes grew rapidly through concerts, solo albums, royalties, investments, film productions and other business ventures. John Lennon’s fortune at the time of his death (1981) was 200 million dollars. This has risen to 700-800 million (in favour of Yoko Ono). George Harrison had an estate worth approximately 400 million at the time of his death (2001). Exact figures are unknown, but at least half of that has certainly been added to date (in favour of Olivia Harrison). Ringo Starr’s estate is worth around 350 million dollars. Paul McCartney’s is worth between 1.2 and 1.5 billion dollars.

A chronological overview of the most important parts of the oeuvre and activities of George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, including lots of music, is presented in each of the four upcoming episodes. These episodes begin with some notes about their lives. At the end, I will reflect on their individual careers.

Posted on

Ragtime

Jazz emerged in the early 20th century from a series of musical styles that in turn resulted from cross-pollination of African-American influences and music brought by other immigrants. One of these styles was ragtime, which in turn evolved from boogie woogie.

Look and listen by way of introduction, to the Harlem Rag, composed by Tom Turpin in 1897. He, like many others, had taught himself to play the piano. Here, the composition is played by Florian Krüger.

 Ragtime is portrayed in countless films as the sultry rhythm in a saloon, played by a straw-hat-clad pianist with his sleeves rolled up, surrounded by ladies waiting for gentlemen to join them upstairs. This was exactly how it was in ‘the Rosebud’, the saloon where Tom Purpin played his songs. There were dozens of such pubs in the red-light districts of St Louis and New Orleans. Ragtime was probably for this reason mainly music for the piano.

Ragtime music has a tight and simple bass part, more varied than the boogie-woogie’s one. The melody plays to the rhythm set by the bass. The notes of the playful melodies fall just a little earlier or a little later than you expect them. ‘Ragged time’ means as much as torn measures. I speak emphatically of melodies, because the boogie woogie consisted mainly of groups of melodic and rousing sounds. This was also because of the improvised nature of many boogie woogies. 

The founder of ragtime is undoubtedly Scott Joplin. He was born in Texas in 1868, the son of an ex-slave who tried to earn a living as a violinist; his mother played the banjo. Scott also learnt to play guitar and bugle and from the age of 13de led the existence of an itinerant musician. His second-best-known song is the Maple Leaf Rag, played here by Dario Ronchi to mark the 100th anniversary of his death, in 1916. 

Scott Joplin wrote 504 different ‘rags’ in his lifetime, one ballet opera – Ragtime Dance – and two ragtime operas, A Guest of Honour and ‘Treemonisha’. 

The ragtime went in different directions: inspiring ‘classical’ composers, incorporation into jazz as ‘dixieland’ music, and it was also the basis for simple pieces for wind orchestras. Western composers also became influenced by ragtime music. In 1918, Igor Strawinsky’s piece ‘Rag-Time’ was premiered. A musical work for 11 instruments. It lasts over 5 minutes.

Early in the 20ste century, ragtime was discovered as the perfect dance music for the popular cakewalk. Essentially, dance couples form a square and each couple performs a silly dance around the square.  A jury judges the performance; among others by looking at the ladies’ elegance and the men’s ingenuity. The highest-rated couple received a richly-decorated cake. 

There were numerous variations. The cakewalk was originally performed by Negro slaves, for the amusement of their masters in which the classical form of ballroom dancing from the upper classes was somewhat ridiculed.

Slaves were still allowed to mock the ballroom of ‘high society; but as it went with all modern dances, ‘high society’ adopted them almost immediately. The dance below dates from around 1900 and played here by the Academy of Danse Libre.

Furthermore, the cakewalk can be practiced in some dance-schools and provides a lot of fun for both the dancers and the audience.  We are then approaching the true meaning of the English word ‘ro rag’, which is to have fun and walking back and forth wildly.

As mentioned, the Maple Leaf Rag is Scott Joplin’s second most popular ‘rag’.  In his time, it was probably the most popular. Listen now to the most popular ragtime melody at the present day. This one is also performed by Dario Ronchi.

The ambience is quite different from the brothels in which Tom Terpin and Scott Joplin played their ‘rags’ in the late 19de century.

Indeed, it is the title tune of the film ‘The Sting’ – exactly 50 years ago – directed by George Roy Hill, starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw. The film’s screenplay was written by David S. Ward and based on the true story of the scams of brothers Fred and Charley Gondorf, as described in David Maurer’s book “The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man” (1940). The film won seven Oscars in 1973 and revenues were huge for the time: $160,000,000. But since then, everyone knows what a “rag” is.

Posted on

Boogie Woogie

Boogie Woogie is a style of music that emerged immediately after the abolition of slavery in the US in the 1870s. This makes the style – like gospel singing – one of the bridges between African-American music, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues from the beginning of the 20th century on. Boogie Woogie has endured over the years and played a major role in the pop music that emerged in the US around the 1960th and would also gain major influence in Europe.

Listen to a recent recording of the ‘Boogie Woogie Piano’ by Johan Blohm. just for fun.

Origin

Freed slaves migrated across America from 1870 in search of work.  At that time, cities developed rapidly and there was a need for lots of timber.  Logging camps sprang up, where many former slaves found work, but also provided musical entertainment in so-called ‘barrelhouses’. These are elementary pubs often just a roof, two beer barrels and a few boards over them, completed by an old piano. Pianists travelled around, telling stories about ‘the outside world”””, which gave them a certain status.  It took not long, before Boogie Woogie was also heard in pubs in the cities.

Boogie Woogie is very catchy and in its elementary form easy to play. Together with the beer (and the ladies) its sound contributed to the pleasure. The origin of the name Boogie Woogie is not clear.  Some think of ‘bogey man’, others hear in the monotonous bass parts the rhythm of the freight trains that carried pianists usually as stowaways from one camp to another. 

The first song in which the term Boogie Woogie appears explicitly is Pine Tops’ Boogie Woogie. ‘Pine Top’ (crown of pine tree) was the nickname of Clarence Smith, one of the piano players who also came to climb pine trees like no other.

Here the original 1928 performance on one of the first gramophone records of the time.

Musical style

Characteristic of Boogie Woogie is the tight rhythm on the piano of the left hand and the frivolous runs with the right hand.  Melody and rhythm are not that important.  The right hand mainly provides variation and inspired dancers to create figures. The lyrics were instructions for dancing. The piano is used like a percussion instrument. This is very well expressed in the following recording, in which piano and drums complementing each other particularly well.

Dance music par excellence

Rhythm, tempo and variation in tone are the key ingredients to put your body in a ‘dancing mood’. To this day, the Boogie Woogie inspires dancing. Nice to see professional dancers displaying their gifts

Boogie Woogie after logging camps and small pubs

Back to history for a moment. When logging camps became history, Boogie Woogie was confined to the many jazz clubs and dance parties.  Gramophone records gave its distribution an initial boost. Initially, Boogie Woogie stayed music by and for African-Americans. That changed in the late 1930s with a concert at Carnegie Hall called ‘From Spirituals to Swing’, which led to a huge uplift in the popularity of ‘black music’. Here is a recording of Mead Lux Lewis, one of famous Boogie Woogie players of that time:.

The bridge to pop music

In 1958, Little Richard provided a bridge between Boogie Woogie and pop music with the song Good Golly Miss Molly. This song was widely adopted by other groups and singers. It reached the 92th place of the ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’s hit list of all time.

Dance competitions

Dancing and on Boogie Woogie are inextricably linked. Sometimes visual effects take the leading role and there is no longer a splashing dance party but a show. This extreme form is also called acrobatic rock and roll. Finally, enjoy a recording of a Boogie Woogie competition from 2016.

Posted on

Worksongs

Recently, I wrote a series of posts about the evolution of the music that immigrants from Europe brought to the US—country & western—and how it blended with rhythm & blues, which is mainly rooted in the African-American tradition. Rock ‘n’ roll, folk, ‘Americana’ and eventually Shania Twain and Taylor Swift positioned in this evolution. 

In the next episodes I take the opposite route. The starting point is the African-American tradition, beginning with the songs sung by slaves, which evolved through spirituals, gospel, and blues into rhythm & blues, Motown, funk, disco, and dance.

It is often said that jazz descended from African music. This is only partially true. Still, music in the Americas would have sounded completely different today if millions of slaves had not been deported to this part of the world. Slaves were not allowed to play the instruments they used in Africa. What was left of African music mixed with music brought by other immigrants and English replaced African languagesounded like, is only known since by a few gramophone records made in the 19de century. Earlier, though, there were wax rolls intended for pianolas, the first of which dates from 1826.

The most direct influence of African music on music in the United States, spirituals and gospel songs, in the first place,  comes from songs, which slaves sang while working. They did so for centuries, and the style has similarities with traditional African singing. Especially the role of a ‘cantor’ interacting with a ‘the choir’. As mentioned, drums are missing.

This recording is an example of a worksong, lyrics and music have been handed down.  The song ‘Po Lazarus’ is sung by James Carter & the Prisoners. The slaves pictured above were working to expand the railway network. Otherwise, they worked on plantations and building dykes.

This song is about a slave captured for the sheriff and shot dead. In other songs, slaves sing of their misery or give ‘disguised’ messages about ways to escape.  This was usually done by jumping on a train. Front singers were also hired who could rouse the slaves, so they worked harder.  

The song that follows next is also advice to slaves who want to escape. Namely wade through the water so the dogs cannot chase you. It is a contemporary rendition by an unknown artist.

The theme of trains played a role in many worksongs, as mentioned above, and much later after the abolition of slavery, this was still the case. This is Sister Rosetta Tharpe with “This Train”.  The recording is from 1964.

As more slaves converted, the songs more often took on a religious content. In the Bible, slaves found comparative material to their own suffering, for example the exile of the Jewish people in Egypt, hence titles such as: Example: Go Down Moses. The songs that emerged then were later sung by world-famous singing groups, like the Golden Gate Quartet here. This recording clearly explores the style of worksongs, but in highly polished form.

To some extent, the development of worksongs outlined so far was limited to what can be called ‘entertainment music’ and ‘religious music’.  But what happened in Europe with folk music, composers also drew inspiration from it. Performance no longer took place in pubs, churches and music halls, but in concert halls. There was talk of ‘Black Art Music’. 

Thus, in the mid-19de century, slavery had not yet been abolished, a choir, the Original Fisk Jubilee Singers, was founded at the University of Nashville.  This choir still exists to this day, more than 150 years later, and performs worldwide with, among other things, compositions dating back to the original worksongs, as far as surviving. You will also hear ‘Wade in the Water’ at a 2019 performance.

Incidentally, Miles Davis’ mother was also a member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Finally, a performance by the Cannonball Adderley Sixtet from 1968. The song is called Work Song.  In content and form, it has nothing to do with a worksong. The composer Nathan Adderley, who plays cornet in his brother’s sixtet was inspired by it because in his youth he saw a group of prisoners working in front of their home in Florida. This was a ‘chain gang’, because of the chain with a steel ball at the end, with which they were connected. They too sang in songs in the tradition of the slaves.

Cannonball Adderly brings us right in the middle of the jazz tradition. Jazz is rhythmic music, partly improvised, with some members of the orchestra playing a solo. The chorus is often recognizable and easy on the ears; the interludes are complex and usually require a lot of technique. Jazz musicians usually seek to distinguish themselves from pop music through their craftsmanship, but the boundaries are fluid and repeatedly crossed deliberately and rightly.

Posted on

Taylor Swift from “teenage wunderkind” to “artist of the decade” (part 2)

During the last five years, Taylor Swift is pushing her musical boundaries (again). Part 2 of this post covers the period from 2020, during which four new albums saw the light of day and she was named ‘Person of the Year’ by Time magazine. In 2022, that accolade went to Volodymyr Zelensky.

The outbreak of the corona epidemic led to the cancellation of a planned tour in 2020, which suddenly gave her an unprecedented amount of time and rest. Nevertheless, 2020 proved to be her most successful year yet, both artistically and commercially. In the second half of 2020, she released two albums in quick succession unannounced: Folklore and evermore (written with lower case). She had read many books and was fascinated by the variety of human characters she encountered in them. She continues to write from the ‘me-person’, but many songs are about other people, fictional or existing. Her lyrics reach an even greater degree of self-awareness, introspection and poetic content. 

Folklore

At first, Listen to ‘Betty’ from the album ‘Folklore’, performed live at the Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. It is part of a ‘teenage love triangle’. In this song, Taylor (in the person of a 17-year-old James) apologises for how he cheated on Betty with an unnamed person, who ‘gets to talk’ in the song ‘August’.

You can find the lyrics of this song here

In another song “Cardigan”, Taylor sings from Betty’s perspective. Betty still hopes for the relationship with James to continue. 

You can find the lyrics to this song here

In the third song ‘August’, we hear the anonymous girl James was in a relationship with over the summer. She laments that James has ‘made up’ again with Betty. But she resignedly says: “You weren’t mine to lose.”

The recording of these songs comes from the ‘Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions’ a music film that features all of Folklore’s songs. Taylor Swift wrote these with co-producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner because concerts were not possible in corona time. They also provide the accompaniment on these recordings. Other songs you should definitely listen to and read the lyrics. Here are four further examples: ‘The 1’, ‘Mirrorball’, ‘This is me trying’ and ‘Peace’.

Most critics called ‘Folklore’ the best album Taylor had made up to that point. The New York Times goes even further and considers this album the best thing the pandemic has produced. 

evermore

Amid euphoria, a few months later ‘evermore’ appeared unexpectedly, an album that was also very well received. It resembles ‘Folklore’. The character studies go a little deeper; Swift still fathoms human emotions around love, grief, marriage and infidelity from the ‘I’ position. Some songs have a clearer pop accent, with melodies that are easy on the ears. This includes the song ‘No body no crime‘ To the more ‘poppy’ songs, you could add ‘Karma’ and ‘Anti-hero’. I will present the the music video for the latter song later. 

‘evermore’ is also characterised by dreamy ballads. ‘Willow’, for instance, has that same subdued quality as most songs from ‘Folklore’. 

You can find the lyrics to this song here

Similar songs on ‘evermore’ are: ‘Champagne problems‘ ‘Coney  island’ and ‘Marjorie’, The latter song is about Taylor’s grandmother, the opera singer Marjorie Finlay. ‘Tolerate it’ is about relationships between young women and older men. The maker of this (unofficial) music film has provided the song with images from the Netflix series ‘The Crown’, specifically Charles and Diana.

Midnights

The albums Folklore and evermore were based on fictional narratives. She imposed emotions onto imagined characters and stories, which liberated her from tabloid attention. On 21 October 2022, the tenth album, Midnights, was released. It matches older albums like 1989 more than the two previous two. T, such as anxiety, insomnia, self-criticism, revenge and schizophrenia and but also confidence in herself. She deals with these themes in a more abstract way to enable the listeners to recognize their own emotions.

The album incorporates a restrained electropop and synth-pop sound with elements of hip hop, R&B, rather than from indie folk and ‘alternative rock, labels that graced the previous two albums. One commentator speaks of ‘chillout music’. Critics were again very positive because of the understated production and vocal style. They also praised the refinement of Swift’s writing. 

You can now listen to ‘Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

The lyrics of this song are here

In this song, she laments the relationship she had at the age of 19 with a ‘grown-up’ man, the way he treated her and the trauma she suffered as a result: “I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil at 19 / And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven / And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts.”

Other songs from this album include ‘Karma’ and Bejuweled, a paraphrase of the Cinderella fairy tale. Worth mentioning is the ballad ‘You’re losing me’. Many saw in it the foreshadowing of the end of her six-year relationship with English actor Jo Alwyn. Furthermore, you should definitely listen to ‘Sweet  nothing’, about the periods of peace Swift experiences in her own home, ‘Maroon‘, a song about missed opportunities and ‘Midnight rain’ in which Swift muses on how things would have been different if she had not chosen her career first and foremost with a previous love. 

The song “You’re on your own, kid” from Midnights describes the insecurities young adults face when they have to build a position, face relationships and see friends go their own way too: “Summer went away / Still the yearning stays / I play it cool with the best of them / I wait patiently / He’s gonna notice me / It’s ok, we’re the best of friends”.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

Midnights was her fifth album to open atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over one million copies, and its tracks, led by the single “Anti-Hero“, made Swift the first artist to monopolize the top 10 of the Hot 100.

Midnights is her the most commercially successful album too. Spotify reports never had so many albums have been streamed in one day, and it was the first time in history that Billboard’s entire top ten consisted of Swift’s songs.

The tortured poets department

Swift’s 11th album was released unexpectedly on April 19, 2024. She had been working on it in secret during the ‘Eras Tour’. She referred at the album as a ‘lifeline’, with introspective songs that depict emotional tumult, with self-awareness, mourning, anger, humor, and delusion as dominant themes. Swift wrote and produced the album with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

The album broke numerous commercial records, including the highest single-day and single-week streams for an album on Spotify. It became the world’s best-selling album of 2024. ‘Fortnight’ was the highest rating single, co-written by Post Malone.

Listen to Fortnight here.

From a musical point of view, a variety of musical styles can be recognized, like minimalist synth-pop, chamber pop, and folk-pop effort with country and rock stylings. Fortnight is exemplary for synth-pop. The songs that are co-written and co-produced by Aron Dessner feature acoustic arrangements, driven by piano and strings, evoking folk-pop arrangements, compared to Swift’s 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore. Listen for example to ‘So high school’ en ‘Who is afraid of little old me’

Comments were polarized. Critics praised her songwriting for emotional resonance and wit, but others found the album lacking profundity. Stepwise, the favorable reviews grew in number. Paul Bridgewater saw the album as Swift’s “most cohesive body” finding the music sophisticated and the lyricism symbolic. Multiple reviews complimented the album’s heavy, unfiltered emotion.

Other activities

In 2023 Taylor Swift embarked on her sixth world tour. It lasted until the end of 2024 and includes 150 performances. In each show, she has been singing 40 songs taken from each of her 10 and in 2024 11 albums. Each album represents a period (‘era’), hence the name ‘Eras tour’.

Taylor wrote the song ‘Beautifull ghosts’ (2019) together with Andre Lloyd Webber for the film ‘Cats’, in which, incidentally, she had a role herself. You can watch a film clip in which Francesca Hayward performs the song as a frightened young cat. This clip is subtitled so you can easily follow the lyrics. On the music video below Taylor sings the song herself.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

For another film ‘Where the Crawdads sing’, she wrote the song “Carolina” (2022) You can also watch the music video below. Lyrics and composition are widely praised for being completely in tune and contributing to the atmosphere the film wants to create. Taylor’s unusually dreamy voice also fits perfectly with this.

Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music-making process. Her production company, ‘Taylor Swift Productions’, is credited with producing all visual media. Swift debuted as a filmmaker with All Too Well: The Short Film, which made her the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Music Video as a solo director.[

Talyor Swift as a person

Taylor’s songs tell more about her as a person than you know from many people around you.  Still, if you want to know more about her and the thousands of articles about her in tabloids do not appeal, read Sam Lanski’s essay, written in response to the fact that Time magazine named her person of the year 2023. You find it here. Time described Swift as the first Person of the Year to be recognized for “achievement in the arts“. 

Relations

The relationship between Taylor Swift and American football player Travis Kelce seems to be stable and the two seems to be happy. Their public appearances together are less frequent, but when they do appear, their bond is clear and reinforces the image of a serious and long-term commitment.

Artisticy

Swift’s passion for writing and composing is clear in the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana. We see images of a young girl who wants to become a singer. The dream came true. In 2011, Swift told The New Yorker that she considers herself to be first and foremost a songwriter. ‘I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across”. Unlike a lot of modern pop, her songs tell stories in succinct and emotive ways. Fans of Swift see her as a woman whose songwriting reflects their concerns. She writes about the anticipation and disappointments of romantic love, emphasising the intensity of the female experience. Nevertheless, humour and self-mockery are always present. Take, for instance, the song ‘Anti-Hero’ from the album Midnights. It is an absurdist clip in which Taylor juggles her own guises. The song depicts all her weaknesses, fears, self-hatred and the idea that her life is out of control.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

She’s the first woman solo artist to win the ‘Album of the Year Grammy’ four times, with each win coming in a different musical genre. It’s a credit to Swift’s masterful songwriting, as it demonstrates her ability to adapt her craft for different audiences. When it comes to mainstream music, Swift is widely regarded as one of the most talented and engaging performers on the scene. Her showmanship and stage presence are often praised.

Assets

As of June 2025, Forbes estimates her net worth at $1.4 – 1.6 billion, making her the richest female musician in the world. She achieved this status solely based on her songs and performances, which earned her widespread acclaim and recognition. On Spotify, she is the only female act to amass 100 billion streams, the only artist to have received more than 250 million and 350 million streams in one day (260 million on October 27, 2023, and 380 million on April 19, 2024), and was the first female act to reach 100 million monthly listeners.

Approximately 6–7% of Swift’s total net assets is represented by the $100 million she has donated in cases of natural disasters and supporting social and educational initiatives. 

Political impact 

Swift has positioned herself politically only recently, with her stance on issues such as gender equality and climate change. Initially, this was reflected in her support for women’s rights and civil rights in general. Secondly, she also pledged herself to the Democratic Party. This put her position within the conservative country and western establishment on edge.  It is widely believed that if Swift had done this earlier, Hillary Clinton would have become president. A survey conducted by the weekly magazine Newsweek in January found that 18 percent of American voters are more likely to vote for a presidential candidate if they have Swift’s support.

Impact on the music industry

Swift has been instrumental in changing the business game for musicians. She’s taken on record labels and streaming services. She is advocating for better deals for artists.

She has successfully used her massive number of downloads on Spotify and Apple Music to push both companies to improve the remuneration of young artists. At one point, she initiated a boycott of both streaming companies.

She used her influence with politicians to pass legislation that prevents companies like Ticketmaster from abusing artists’ popularity to drive up prices.

Finally, she has stopped investors (private equity) from enriching themselves by trading the master recording of her albums. She achieved this by re-recording each of her first six albums (‘Taylor’s Version’). As for the later albums, she had already negotiated ownership over the master recordings. This did not hurt her financially.  She recently repurchased the original master recordings too.

Becoming a victim herself

Her personal life and career have been subject to intense misogyny and “slut-shaming”, as well as rampant media scrutiny and tabloid speculation. Swift has also been a victim of numerous house break-ins and stalkers, some of whom were armed.

Each step Swift takes is under public scrutiny. Her private jet use has also been criticised for its carbon emissions. In 2023, Swift’s spokesperson announced that she had purchased more than double the required carbon credits to offset all tour travel and personal flights.

Though Swift has never spoken officially on the topic of mental health, she has written many lyrics that suggest the impact of her public expositor on her mental health and subsequent alcohol use.

Academic recognition

Time described Swift as the first ‘Person of the Year’ to be recognised for “achievement in the arts”, and she received an ‘Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts’ degree from New York University, where she also served as its commencement speaker on May 18, 2022.

In 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute announced a course focused on Swift, which was to be taught by Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos. Swift was also awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts, in recognition of her status as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation”.

Journalists, politicians and scholars have devoted considerable attention to Taylor Swift’s lyrics and music, conducting research and offering insights. Swift, according to Vox, appeals to the feelings of the millennial generation in a way that Bruce Springsteen did to the baby boomers. She connects ethnic, cultural and national differences and is of great significance for women’s empowerment.

Well, the story about Taylor Swift is far from over, is it? 

Posted on

Taylor Swift from “teenage wunderkind” to “artist of the decade” (part 1)

“From ‘country & western to crossover’ is a recurring theme in recent posts. Now is the perfect time to focus on Taylor Swift. At the start of her career, she decided to focus on this genre. After releasing three albums, she has since become a versatile artist.

Taylor Alison Swift is born on 13 December 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania, US. Her parents named her after American songwriter James Taylor. To get right to the point, she is currently considered the world’s best singer-songwriter in the popular genre.

At nine, she performs at local festivals, singing her own songs. Taylor travels regularly with her mother to New York, where she take singing and drama lessons. Taylor feels attracted to the narrative nature of country and western music. She was a great admirer of Shania Twain.

At the age of 11, she recorded some songs. With these, she and her mother visited several record companies, but they thought she was too young. Yet she did not go unnoticed, because at the age of 15, Sony/ATV hired her as a ‘songwriter’ and record company Big Machine Record offered her a contract. The family then moved to Nashville.

In 2006, she debuted her first album ‘Taylor Swift’. This album subsequently spent 157(!) weeks on the Billboard 200 list. This made her the youngest artist in US history to reach number one with an album full of self-penned songs. 

First album ‘Taylor Swift’

You can listen to one of the songs from this album, titled ‘Tim McGraw’, here. He is also a singer-songwriter. In the song, she asks her ex-boyfriend to always think of her when he hears Tim McGraw’s song ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothing’. This recording shows Taylor meeting Tim McGraw and his wife Faith Hill. She was 16 years old at the time.

Click here for the lyrics of ‘Tim McGraw’

Other songs from this album that topped the charts were Teardrops to my guitar, Our song and Pictures to burn. You can also listen to these songs by following the links.

Before I delve a little deeper into the development between 2006 and now, I want to illustrate her abilities. This recording was made during of the 2019 American Music Awards ceremony. The show is a ‘potpourie’ of seven songs from previous years. Swift herself was awarded the title ‘artist of the decade’ (2010 – 2020). She had previously been named ‘woman of the decade’.

I consider the last song, Lover’, one of the highlights of her work. 

On next version of the same song, she accompanies herself on guitar along with the band that has accompanied her for years, including during the big stage performances. 

Click here for the lyrics of ‘Lover’

I return to the beginning. In the early years, like Shania Twain, she was considered a country singer and on her first three albums ‘Taylor Swift’, ‘Fearless’ and ‘Speak now’, it was evident. 

Three characteristics are often mentioned as distinguishing country music: its narrative character, simple melody and the choice ofl instruments.  As for the first characteristic, even her later songs are about personal experiences. The typical country instruments such as banjo, dobra (steel guitar) and violin soon disappeared from the scene. Her songs are not complicated, but their literary content exceeds that of the average country song. The tempo is also much faster and therefore suits a younger audience better.

Fearless

Her second album is Fearless. Half a million albums were sold in its first week of its release. This turned into 18 million worldwide. It is also the most acclaimed album in the history of country music. Here is from this album Love story, the song with which she broke through internationally (2008). It tells the story of Romeo and Juliet, with Taylor in the role of Juliet. 

Click here for the lyrics of ‘Love story’

The songs on the first three albums were fueled by personal experiences: Infatuation, heartbreak and insecurity. A rotten afternoon at school could easily produce a world hit. She usually wrote down what she felt first and corresponding melodies bubbled up naturally.

Red

From the fourth album ‘Red’, you have already heard a song during her show at the American Music Awards ceremony: ‘I knew you were trouble’.

You can now watch and listen to another song from this album ‘We are never ever getting back together’. The song expresses her frustration over a revolving-door relationship with an ex-boyfriend, in which she also felt humiliated by his lack of appreciation for her music.

You can look and listen to three versions of this song. the first one is a recording for a limited number of fans, with her accompanying herself on guitar.

Click here for the lyrics of ‘We will never ever get back together’

Then compare this with tversion wo more ones from her world tours, namely the Red tour and the 1989 tour. You can hear the ‘pop’ content increasing; especially in the latter version where Taylor starts with a long introduction on an electric guitar.

Other songs you can listen to and watch here are: ‘Begin again’, ‘Everything has changed’ (featuring Ed Sheeran), ‘The last time‘ and ‘Red’.

1989

In 2014, she announced that her album ‘1989’ would be her first ‘proper’ pop album. On previous occasions, she had always waved away criticism from the Nashville establishment that her music was more pop than country, saying “I leave the genre labelling to other people”. Now she did just that herself. She considered it a ‘rebirth’, hence the reference to her birth year of 1989. The album is predominantly synth-pop, 80s-style and was widely praised and Taylor was now also added to the line-up of the decade’s best pop stars.

From ‘1989’, you’ve already heard ‘Blank Space’.  Other big hits from ‘1989’ were ‘Shake it off’, ‘Bad Blood, ‘Style’, ‘Wldest dreams‘, ‘New romantics‘ and ‘Out of the woods’. You can hear the latter song here. In it, Taylor accompanies herself on the piano. 

Click here for the lyrics of ‘Out of the woods’

The song describes a fragile relationship full of uncertainty and doubt .The recurring question ‘Are we out of the woods yet’ describes her unrequited desire to stabilise this relationship. According to critics, this song succeeds best of all the others on ‘1989’ in approximating the synth-pop of the 1980s.  Of course, you hear less of that on this acoustic version. On the music video, which you can see here, Taylor tries to escape from a magical forest.  The beautiful footage was shot New Zealand.

The two subsequent albums, ‘Reputation’ (2017) and ‘Lover’ (2019), unlike ‘1989’, include crossovers to rhythm & blues and hip-hop.

Reputation

In ‘Reputation’, she broaches the drawbacks of her celebrity after a period in which she had received a lot of negative press attention because of her many and what she considered opportunistic relationships, and themes of alienation and sexism come up. Reputation has a heavy sound and is made almost entirely with synthesisers and (drum) computers except for the last song ‘New year’s day’ which was recorded with only an acoustic piano. You can see the premiere of this song here.  Other songs include ‘Ready for it‘, ‘End game’, ‘Delicate‘, ‘Getaway car’, ‘Look what you made me do’and ‘Georgeous’, which you can watch now.

This song is dedicated to a new love, but whether it will be something she does not know. In any case, she doesn’t take it too hard: In that case “I’ll just stumble on home to my cats… alone”. Critics call the song a relief compared to the sombre nature of the rest of the album.

Click here for the lyrics of ‘Georgeous’

Lover

‘Lover’ covers the whole spectrum of adult relationships and love and, according to Swift, is “a love letter to love”. She also takes a stand on human rights, feminism and against racism. The production is lighter in nature than ‘Reputation’ and besides electronics, acoustic instruments make their return. In terms of style, it contains elements of country, folk, funk and pop. The album was received very positively by critics, critics also saw in it a consolidation of the qualities she had established before Reputation. Some raise the question, what will Swift come up with next…. 

You have already heard the title song ‘Lover’; it was the piano solo in her 2019 American Music Rewards performance. Other hits from ‘Lover’ include ‘I forgot that you existed’, ‘You need to calm down’, ‘me‘, ‘Soon you’ll get better’ and ‘The man’. Finally, an acoustic rendition of this song. It’s about double standards: much more is accepted from men than from women, so she imagines what it would be like if she were a man. For the witty music video, directed and played by Swift, she received an MTV Music Award.

Click here for the lyrics of ‘The man’

What you’ve heard so far now reflects Taylor’s first six albums.  In the next post, I’ll explore the last five ones and then you’ll get acquainted with other aspects of Taylor Swift’s singing.

Posted on

Shania Twain, exploring the crossover between country and pop music

Since the 1950s, there are musicians, who want to enrich country & western music by building bridges to other types of music (‘so-called crossovers’), such as European pop, rhythm & blue sand rock. From the late 20ste century, the popularity of crossovers seems to have surpassed that of traditional country & western. A person that has contributed to this is Shania Twain who thus paved the way for Taylor Swift among others. To get acquainted with Shania , listen to her rendition of ‘Man, I feel like a woman’, a song from her third album.

Back to the beginning. Eilleen Regina Edwards was born on 28 August 1965 near Ontario.  She never knew her father. She was raised by mother and her stepfather, whose name she also took. He was an Oibwa, a Canadian First Nation and from his language would also come the name Shania, which she started using as a stage name around the age of 20. From the age of eight, she worked alongside her school to help earn a living for the family.  She cleaned in pubs and worked with her father in forestry.  Later, she became a singer in several bands with which she gained much appreciation.

Here is a clip from that time of otherwise poor quality on which she sings the song ‘What Made You Say That’, a song she did not write herself.

The lyrics of this song are here

Her Cinderella days were yet to come to an end. At her 22the, she took up caring for her younger brother and sister when her parents were killed in a car accident. 

She managed to get the attention of a record company, Nashville-based Mercury, and on her 28the , she released her first album: ‘Shania Twain’. It also contained the song ‘What Made You Say That’. The record company produced a rather explicit music video with it for the time, which you can hear here.

The album was not a commercial success, but it did attract the attention of producer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, whom she married soon after and who was a key support on the three albums she released between 1995 and 2002.

The woman in me

The first of these (her second album) ‘The woman in me’ (1995) sold 20 million copies. Her husband had an unerring sense of marketing and replaced the country ‘flavor’ in this album for sales outside the US with ‘pop’ elements, for instance swapping violins for synthesisers. Market segmentation would continue in subsequent albums. 

The two most successful songs were ‘(If you are not in for love) I ‘am outta here’ and ‘Any man of mine’, a clear example of a ‘crossover’.  One of the rare pure country & western songs is ‘Whose bed have your boots been under?’, which is accompanied by a funny music video.  You can listen and watch it here.

‘I’m outta here’ is the first of the two recordings from this album. This song also has a humorous video, that also has several versions.  You can watch the somewhat absurdist ‘Mutt Lange pop remix’ here. In this video, drums play an important role. This was also the case in her concert tour.  This song was usually closing number (before encores) and she was always accompanied on stage by a local drum band in the process. Watch and listen here:

The lyrics of this song are here

The second song from ‘The woman in me”, that you can listen to and watch here is ‘Any man of mine’

Read the lyrics here

With this song, Twain reached No 1 on the country charts in the US for the first time. You can watch a live performance filmed in Dallas. The widely viewed music video (watch here) undoubtedly boosted Shania’s acceptance as a country singer. 

From the songs in this album, I picked a couple of good recordings: Come Over Here, Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love) and From This Moment On.

Critics were generally positive, praising the way Shania adapted country & western music to the inevitable influence of rock and pop. Others felt that the album had nothing or little to do with country & western anymore. Still others felt that Twain did not need her superficial flirtation with country & western at all to excel as a singer. Critics looking back on this album a decade later believe that she has definitively put ‘country pop’ on the map as its own genre. Taylor Weatherby of Billboard speaks of a ‘brilliant fusion of country, pop and rock’.

Up

Shania’s fourth album ‘Up’ (2002), which sold 20 million copies, plays even further into the differences between outlets. Here  is the title track ‘Up’, live in Chicago. 

Three different CDs were released, a green CD that has a predominantly country & western character and also contains some acoustic songs, a red CD, on which pop and rock dominate and a blue CD with a dance and South American character. Using the links above, you can compare the three genres using the three official music videos of the title track ‘Up’. I think the differences are very small.

Again, comments were mostly positive. Something for all tastes, surely seems to be increasingly becoming Twain’s (or Lange’s) trademark, but it was also noted that ‘Up’ is “too generic and emotionless for that level of diversity”.

You can now watch two other songs. The first is “Thank You Baby (For Makin’ Someday Come So Soon)”. The music video was shot at a gallery in Vancouver and released only in Europe. 

You can watch and listen to this video here.

Read the lyrics here

Next, watch and listen to ‘She’s Not Just a Pretty Face’, live from Chicago. Billboard’s comments did not lie: The song is an “ultra-lightweight country-girl power anthem” but also “exquisite country pop”.

The lyrics are here

Her next new studio album came just 15 years after “Up”. Lyme disease significantly weakened her voice and she endured open throat surgery to strengthen her vocal cords. Moreover, she divorced in 2008, after Lange got into a relationship with her best friend. She remarried in 2011 with Frédéric Thiébaud,  ceo of the Neslé group[1]. She did not perform again for the first time until 2012.

Now

For this album ‘Now (2017) and for the subsequent ‘Queen of me’ (2023), Shania Twain not only wrote all the songs, but she also took responsibility over the production, something her former husband did for the previous albums. Listen to from ‘Now’: ‘Life’s About to Get Good’.

You will find lyrics here

The song, which is about coming out on top after a difficult time, was well received.  Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger called it ‘Come on over’-worthy (her third and best-reviewed album, 20 years earlier)

Queen of me

Netflix made a documentary of Shania Twain’s life in 2022. It was called ‘Not just a girl’, after a 2022 song that is also on ‘Queen of me’.  I am showing the ‘unofficial’ music video of this song, which consists of a collage of photos and videos covering her entire life as a singer. Those who want to hear ‘Not just a girl ‘live’ listen to the (mediocre) recording in Las Vegas here.   

Lastly, listen to a song from ‘Forever and for Always’ (album ‘Up’), recorded during the ‘Queen of me’ tour in September 2023.  The song is about friendships that last a lifetime. I noticed for the first time that her voice was lower than before. You (finally) start to see the age (58!).                                      

read the lyrics here

Music critics generally hold her songs, her vocal performances and her stage performances in high regard. That appreciation applies to a slightly lesser extent to her two latest albums. ‘Queen of me’ contains mostly unadulterated electro-pop. One critic notes that Twain “tries so hard to capture current trends that it already sounds behind the times”.

My next post is about one of the singers for whom Shania paved the way, Taylor Swift, whose artistry will be explored in the next two post.

[1] His name came up in another blog post of mine ear a few years members after this company was accredited as a ‘benefit corporation’, expressing that social considerations, consumer interests and nature carry equal weight with shareholder value.

Posted on

From ‘rock & roll to ‘rock’

From ethnical to age group based division of musical preferences

in the second half of the 1950s rock & roll was a previously unprecedentedly popular type of music. But ‘rock & roll’ was played in the black community in the US much earlier and was simply called ‘rhythm and blues’, boogie-woogie or jazz. Examples include: “Roll ’em Pete” by Big Joe Turner and pianist Pete Johnson (1939), “Rocking this house” by Memphis Slim and the House Rockers (1946), “Rock and Roll” by Wild Bill Moore (1948), “Rock the joint” by Jimmy Preston (1949), “Saturday night fish fry” by Louis Jorden (1949) and “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston.

The following short film (15 minutes) shows many artists who can be retrospectively classified under the ‘rock & roll’ label. The influence of Afro-American roots, boogie-woogie in particular, is clearly audible.

While the term ‘rock and roll’ was well known, it did not refer to a type of music in the beginning. It was the name of the movement of a ship on the waves (‘rocking and rolling’) and later took on an explicitly sexual meaning when, among others, Trixie Smith sings ‘My (man) rocks me with one steady roll’ in 1922 or Billy Ward ‘I rock ’em roll ’em all night long’ in 1951.

Disk jockey Alan Feed was the first who used the term in 1951 as a designation for a type of music. His radio show was listened to by both white and black American youths. ‘Rock and roll’ has been said to be the first style of music to appeal to a specific age group and not an ethnic group as had been the case in the US until then. With that, the term is also linked to the development of a youth culture, with its own clothing, style of going out and dancing. The twist is inextricably linked to rock and roll. 

The genre’s breakthrough was caused by white musicians – or perhaps better their record labels – such as Bill Haley and his Commets with “Rock the joint“(1952), which had previously been sung by Jimmy Preston, “Rock around the clock” (1954), and “Shake, rattle and roll” previously sung by Big Joe Turner. 

The song “Rock around the clock” only became a world hit in 1955 thanks to the film ‘Blackboard Jungle’, a film in which later icon Sidney Poitier debuted. For the first time, riots broke out with fans wanting to attend a performance by the group. You can see Bill Haley and his Comets (and his audience) at work here

Bill Haley’s other hits included “See you later alligator” ,” Rock-a-beatin’ boogie“, “Rip it up“, “Hot dog buddy buddy” and more….

Bill Haley’s fame declined rapidly; when Elvis Presley appeared on the scene and appeared to have much greater sex appeal, his fans turned their backs on him. But first and foremost, he had a fantastic voice. Bill Haley was giant on whose shoulders, Elvis could glory. Here you can watch “Ready Teddy” (1957) on the Ed Sullivan Show. Usually only his upper body is in view, as people found the jerky movements with his lower body offensive to viewers.

In an earlier post, I  have explored his songs.

Rockability: Cross-over between rock and roll and hillbilly music

Others who rode the wave of rock & roll were Johnny Cash with “Folsom prison Blues” and, of course, Buddy Holly, whose career ended by a plane crash (1959). Buddy Holly gained great fame with songs “Peggy Sue“, “Oh boy” and “That will be the day“. Here you can listen to Peggy Sue during a performance on the Ed Sullivan show (1957).

Incidentally, some black artists did gain recognition as rock & roll artists, such as Little Richard, here with “Long tall Sally“(1955, with Bill Haley in the audience), Chuck Berry with “Johnny B. Goode“(1958) and Fats Domino. In 1957, the latter said: ‘What they call rock ‘n’ roll now is rhythm and blues. I’ve been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans’.

The now next song “Jambalaya” was certainly not meant to be rock and roll, but the musicians didn’t care about that and the audience even less. The musicians are none others than Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Ron Wood (now Rolling Stones) and Paul Shaffer. The totally revved-up audience provides the background ‘vocals’ (well, background….).

Elvis Presley was well acquainted with and greatly admire ‘black’ rock & roll artists.  When he was called ‘King of rock & roll’ he held it off by referring to Fats Domino, in his opinion (rightly) the only singer to whom this title was appropriate. 

The record industry, which was responsible for landing Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, later thought it would do well to launch a somewhat more polished version of rock & roll that was accessible to a wider audience and therefore more commercial. Partly as a result, artists like Ricky Nelson, here with “Hello Mary-Lou“(1959), and Del Shannon with “Runaway‘ (1959). 

This ‘new’ type of music was named ‘rockabilly’, a word that refers to the crossover of rock and country & western (‘hillbilly’ music). This is an example of how whites left their mark on historiography. Rock & roll music, as you have heard, was played from as early as the 1940s and has African-American roots.

Rather, whites, some of whom were country singers until then, were adopting the musical style of their black colleagues. 

Provider of a British rock and roll version was Harry Webb, who later adopted the stage name Cliff Richard, and his band ‘The Shadows’, previously called ‘the Drifters’. Their songs and instrumental numbers became world famous. They were widely imitated, especially in the rest of Europe.

Here, Cliff Richard sings with the Shadows “Move it” (1958), which was considered the first authentically British rock and roll song. 

The record company pushed Cliff Richard to impersonate Elvis, to dress as much as possible. It looks a bit forced, but he does his best. Here you can also see him in “Do you wanna dance“(1958).

It is fun to compare this performance of “Move it” from a performance by the same Cliff, now with Hank Marvin, one of the former Shadows in 1995. They perform at London’s Dominion Theatre with ‘The Queen’ in the front row. You can see it here.

But Great Britain had another answer….  

By the late 1950s, ‘skiffle’ music had gained high popularity. In essence, skiffle has the same roots as American country music, which in turn emerged from European folk music.  This can be well heard on a recording of Lonnie Donegan’s “Putting on thes tyle”(1957). 

The rise of skiffle was in response to the growing commercialization of mainstream pop music. The thousands of skiffle groups that sprang up all over the UK used simple instruments like guitar, mandolin and washboard or drums. For many, Lonnie Donegan was the role model. For ‘The Quarryman’ too.

Over time, ‘The Quarrymen’ developed their own sound, by adding a bit more ‘beat’ to their songs. They changed their name and with it music history. You can see their first gig at ‘The Cavern’ here (1962)

With their new name, ‘The Beatles’ conquered the world, at least musically, the ‘British Invasion’. Countless other English ‘beat groups’, such as Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman Hermits, Dave Clark Five traveled to the States. This list could also include the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds, but their music, especially in the early days, was more strongly inspired by the ‘rhythm & blues’ genre. All recordings date from the early 1960s.

The second half of the 1960s saw the emergence of many new styles of music, generally referred to by the term ‘rock’.  Within rock, a division tok place between ‘hard rock’, sometimes also referred to as ‘metal’, and ‘soft rock’, sometimes called ‘folk rock’.  Famous exponents of the former include Steppenwolf with, for example, “Born to be wild” and of the latter the Eagles with “Hotel California. From the turn of the century, the boundaries between pop and rock blurred and we also saw the rise of electronic (dance) music, with all its variations.   Of course, I will come back to all this later.

However, there are also musicians who keep the spirit of rock and roll alive. Some of them have recently formed the group “The Barnstones” and they made a brilliant album. This  super formation is featuring Jimmy Barnes, Slim Jim Phantom, Chris Cheney , Kevin Shirley and Jools Holland’, whose piano is unmistakably present.  Here you listen to the song ‘Johnny’s Gone ‘from this album, accompanied by a fast-paced cartoon. The best rock & roll ever from 2023….

Posted on

Elvis Presley: ‘King of Music’ brought down by manager and doctor 

Elvis Presley was born on 8 January 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. His family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948. He learned to play the guitar from a boy next door. He was not a very popular kid at school. This changed after his appearance in the local minstrel show, after friends signed him up for the show.

The start of Elvis’ carrier

At 18the , Elvis went to work as a truck driver and in the meantime, he looked forward to an opportunity to use his talents as a musician. That this was successful was mostly due to coincidence. Elvis had had a song recorded at Sam Phillips’ studio to give as a gift to his mother. Phillips, the owner of the studio was just looking for a ‘white’ boy with a ‘black’ voice. The assistant who had recorded the record remembered Elvis and he, along with two other boys, guitarist “Scotty” Moore and bassist Bill Black, were invited to come and do some singing. Afterwards, the trio would be inseparable for several years. It seemed to be nothing and when the session had already ended, Elvis started singing Arthur Cudrups’ song “That’s all right, mama” (1946). That was the sound Phillips was looking for. The song appeared on local radio and the interviewer asked him what school he had attended in order to reveal his white identity. Phillips now recorded his song with “Blue Moon of Kentucky” on the B-side.

The trio was regularly invited to perform at local clubs over the following months, often as the support act for a more celebrity. At those gigs, Elvis was shaking on his legs with nerves, which led to the girls in the audience starting to scream. Elvis soon became more confident, but he developed the shaking of his lower body into an act in no time. The girls screamed, but the boys hated them out of jealousy. The police often got involved as these boys were waiting for Elvis outside. Later, even the national guard joined the police. He was much less heard on the radio.  The stations broadcasting country & western thought he was a ‘nigger’ and the more ‘rhythm & blues’ oriented stations thought he sounded too much like a ‘hillbilly’.

Breaking through and becoming a celebrity

Heartbreak Hotel became Presley’s first number-one hit, making him a national celebrity. A few weeks later, RCA released his first album “Elvis Presley”.  His raucous vocals had a great influence on then barely known singers like John Lennon and Keith Richards. Their appreciation was countered by the disgust of established newspapers and their readers and television presenters. Yet they all invited him to perform on their shows. Ed Sullivan, for instance, paid $50,000 for three performances, most of it  went to Elvis’ manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker. Half of the audience tuned into these shows to enjoy, scream or giggle at his songs, including, for example, “Blue Suede shoes”, which you can hear now, including the screams on a 1956 recording.

Meanwhile, his second film “Loving You” was released and he was shooting his third film “Jailhouse Rock”. The title song of this film had become a huge success. You can hear this song here.

In the army

On 24 March 1958, Elvis’ tour of duty broke. He had expressed his wish to be treated as an ‘ordinary’ soldier and so it happened.  He spent part of his military service in Germany, where he also met Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he would marry eight years later. She was only 14 at the time. He also got to know something completely different, namely amphetamine. The sergeant generously dispensed it to him and other soldiers because he had noticed that it made his men a lot more energetic.  Meanwhile, Elvis had also bought a new house for his parents and himself, Graceland.

His fans had no chance to forget him.  The record company had the necessary recordings on the shelf, such as “Wear My Ring Around  Your Neck“, “Hard Headed Woman “, “One Night“, “A Fool Such as I” and “Big Hunk o’ Love”. You can hear the latter one here.

Back from service, Elvis immediately dove into the RCA studio, where his best album up to that point, ‘Elvis Back’, was recorded. The album showed Elvis at his strongest, from raw rocker, emotional blues singer to interpreter of romantic ballads.  It includes his best-selling singles, such as Stuck on you“, “Is now or never” and “Are you lonesome tonight?” You can hear the last song here:

A few more albums were released in the 1960s that exemplified the then dominating ‘cosmopolitan’ Nashville country style.  Furthermore, 27 more films were recorded in the 1960s, mostly dubbed ‘dregs’ by critics.  The songs Elvis had to sing on those were invariably put on record and sold well too, but it depressed Elvis that he had no challenging projects on his hands.

Some of his most popular songs – all from films – were “Can’t help falling in love” (1961), “Return to Sender” (1962), “Viva Las Vegas“, the title track of a 1964 film that would only become popular years later, “A little less conversation” (1968) which became a number-one hit as a remix in a Nike advertisement at the World Cup only in 2002. “Crying in the chapel” which had been recorded in 1960 and was still on the shelf, was the only song to reach the top-ten. Most of the above-mentioned songs are fragments from films.  However, the fans wanted to see Elvis sing live.  That happened again from 1968 onwards.

Live again

Everyone thought Elvis should perform again and in 1968 the ‘Come back special’ was broadcast. Presley, tight in leather, appealed to the feelings of the of years gone by.  You can see and hear a medley of three old songs “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Hound Dog “and “All shook up. 

Elvis was uplifted by this performance, but Parker was furious because he  had in mind a sweet-voiced Christmas show. Presley recorded another album not consisting of film music for the first time in eight years, called “From Elvis in Memphis“.  Critics were positive.  For the first time, ‘soul’ took center stage, alongside rock and country songs.  A choice was made to put more emphasis on what was called the Memphis sound (akin to country & western) instead of the standard pop sound. The following songs date from this time and are partly on this album.  The recordings are from Las Vegas and Honolulu: “Burning love“, “The wonder of you”, “Suspicious  minds“, “Kentucky rain“, “Patch it up” and “In the ghetto”, you are about to watch. This protest song jumped that straight to number one on charts.

From his early childhood, Elvis loved gospel songs after his parents took him to performances by the Statesmen Quartet.

Elvis sings gospel

In 1957, he made his first gospel album “How Great Thou Art’. From this, you can listen to “Run on”. No older recording is available, so you can now watch a recording from 1972. 

His style increasingly becoming a mix of soul, rock and country, Elvis had been revived by his recent work. He craved challenging projects. He was invited several times to perform in films that went beyond the character of 1960s sneak peeks.  Manager ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker held it all off; the latter felt that Elvis should cash in on his renewed repertoire, now that it was once again attracting full audiences. In 1973 alone, he was booked for 168 concerts.

Continuing exploitation

From 1973, things went downhill. Elvis had repeatedly overdosed on barbiturates and had been hospitalized in a coma. Elvis abhorred drug use, but when his body doctor Nichopoulos prescribed them to him, he trusted their medicinal effects. In October, his divorce was pronounced. Priscilla had already left Graceland in 1971 with their little daughter Lisa-Marie (who, incidentally, died recently). He did not recover from the blow of the divorce. During his performances, he wore increasingly desperate costumes and screaming girls were long gone. These performances were sometimes toe-curling.  Sometimes Elvis couldn’t get out of his words, sometimes he stood stock-still and didn’t know any lyrics, without an extra dose of pep pills.

Despite all this, six more albums were released between 1973 and 1976, partly with old material. Eight songs from these still made it into the top 10. They include ‘My boy‘ (1975), “Moody Blue” (1976) and -praised and reviled – “Hurt”(1976). This is seen below in one of Elvis’ last performances in 1977.

Elvis dies

On 16 August 1977, his then-girlfriend found him dead the bathroom floor; he was due to fly to Memphis later that afternoon for a gig. Two days later, at was buried in the presence of thousands of fans. Investigations revealed that died of excessive medication. His doctor had prescribed him 10,000 doses of tranquilizers and amphetamines in 1957 alone. This doctor was acquitted of involvement in his death but after all he was removed from office. 

Apart from his doctor, manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker (1909 – 1997) also played a bad role. Friends of Elvis described it as a fraud as Parker was only after Elvis’ money. He managed all business contacts, appropriated 30-50% of all revenues and prevented Elvis from breaking new ground.  He also prevented Elvis from performing abroad, a great desire of his.  Parker, born as Dries van Dijk had moved to the US from the Netherlands without any documentation; he had lived for years on the frayed edges of society as manager of circuses, among other things. Once he became manager of several artists, no one asked for his passport any more. As an illegal with a made-up name, he could not travel abroad. In the 2022 film ‘Elvis’, his relationship with the “Colonel”, played by Tom Hanks, plays an important role. 

After Elvis’ death, the memory of his person and of his music has rightly lived on to this day. The albums are still sold, most of his fortune has been lost through mismanagement.

Elvis; the concert

I’m going to let Elvis shine one more time. “Elvis, the concert” was an extremely successful show that went around the world several times from 1997. The last time, in 2012, the show also landed in Ahoy, Rotterdam. Elvis could only have dreamt of that. How was this possible? Several high-quality ‘multi-track’ recordings of concerts in the early 1970s were available. Elvis’ voice was filtered out off these tracks. He and, the musicians are projected on large screens, cleverly edited and accompanied live by a band, some of which consisted of members of his original backing band. Sometimes you also see the original backing band (just watch the drums), but you don’t hear it. You can see here the recording of the concert in 2002, marking the 25ste anniversary of Elvis’ death[1] . 

Elvis was exploited as a ‘cash cow’ and was given incredible amounts of stimulants and narcotics to do so. He should have been coached and given more rest as well as artistic stimuli. Then he would have been together with Priscilla and Lisa-Marie, and he could have established his fame as the ‘King of Music’ worldwide. It only didn’t happen.

[1] You can watch a full replay of this concert here

Posted on

The European roots of music in America: 100 years of Country & Western

In this and the following posts, I will discuss the spread of European folk music across the US and its subsequent cross-pollination with African-American music.

The emergence of the Hillbillies

Folk music is from always and everywhere. It was the main form of entertainment in past centuries, especially in rural areas and by poorer people.  Most of us know the often centuries-old songs, sang along and danced to them. When mass migration of Europeans to the US started during the 18de century, migrants took their music with them. Many settled in the eastern coastal region, the Appalachians and later they spread across the southern states. Music groups also emerged and were welcome guests at parties and pubs (honky tonks). In the early years of the 20ste century, the emerging gramophone record industry took notice of this music. Ralph Peer therefore travelled town and country to record the music. It was he who dubbed the inhabitants of the eastern and south-eastern United States ‘hillbillies’, and the name also became established for the type of music they made.

Musicians of the first hour were James Gideon ‘Gid’ Tanner (1885 – 1960), a chicken farmer who played the violin in his spare time in his band ‘the Skillet Lickers’ (‘Cotton-Eyed Joe’) and ‘Jimmie Rodgers (‘Kisses sweeter than wine’), who would be heard for many years to come. So was the Carter Family, a band in which successive generations would alternate until 1957.  Later famous guitarist Chat Atkins was also part of this band for a while. So was Johnny Cash after he married one of the members of the family.

Here, the Carter family sings ‘Wildwood Flower (1928)

The idealization of country & western life

In addition to the burgeoning record industry, the idealisation of the cowboy life captured in the growing number of westerns helped to popularise the genre. As a result, the term ‘hillbilly music’ was replaced by ‘country & western’ in the 1940s.

In the clip below, Patsy Montana sings ‘I want to be a cowboy’s sweetheart’ (1939) along with the Texas Rangers.

By now, the city of Nashville had become the hub of country & western, not least because many programs were broadcasted live from the Grand Ole Opry theatre, which, as the years progressed, became an arena with more than 4,000 seats (see title photo). Performances at this theatre launched many an artist and were also intended to preserve the traditional character of country & western. As a result, the genre has long remained the music of the conservative part of the American population. 

Country & western could be heard in every pub in the 1930s, and because of the volume, a (old) piano was often added a to the instrumentation that consisted of fiddle, guitar, dobro (a kind of steel guitar) and banjo or mandolin. It was also often referred to as honky tonk music. Bobb Wills (‘San Antonio Rose’), Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams sr were leading artists of this era. 

Here Hank Williams senior sings ‘Hey Good looking’

Preserving the traditional image of country and western music from the 1930s to the present day was the main aim of the CMA (Country Music Association) and its temple, the Grand Ole Opry.

At the other side many artists drew inspiration from other musical genres in search of their own sound.  The CMA was highly critical of this. For this reason, Billl Haley and somewhat later Elvis Presley were denied access to the theatre because of their emerging ‘rockability style’, one of these first ‘crossovers’ which laid the foundation for ‘rock ‘n roll’.

Here’s a performance by ‘rebel’ Bill Haley and his Comets: ‘Rock around the clock tonight’.

Back to ‘blue grass music’ of the 1940s

‘Excesses’ like this regularly led to a reappraisal of the ‘roots’ of country & western.  The ‘blue grass’ music of the 1940s, which would retain varying degrees of popularity for decades. Its founder is Bill Monroe (1911 – 1996) and his band The Blue Grass Boys, named after the nickname of the state of Kentucky, ‘Blue grass state’. This music stands out for the front singer’s high-pitched voice and perfect harmony singing with the background choir. The shrill voice initially had to compensate for the absence of a microphone. Another famous band was the Osborn Brothers (‘Rocky top’).

Here you can hear Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys in ‘Blue moon of Kentucky’, a recording from 1975, the song had obviously been played for many years by then. 

The Nashville sound

The second crossover came from the capital of country & western itself, namely the record industry. During the 1950s, it saw with sorrow the popularity of rock ‘n roll and rhythm & blues grew. A team including Chat Atkins was hired to make country & western smoother. The steel guitar and fiddle gave way to background choirs and strings. But the great success of this approach was mainly due to the sweet-voiced Jim Reeves, Don Gibson (‘Oh Lonesome me’) and Patsy Cline. 

Here, Jim Reeves sings ‘He’ll have to go’. 

Soon there was talk of the “Nashville Sound”, which, at least for the moment, found favour with the country and western establishment., the Nashville sound was a great success.  However, the musician Atkins, who co-founded it, was increasingly unhappy with it because any move towards a jazzier sound was taboo. When asked to describe what was so typical of the Nashville sound, he rattled the change in his pocket and said, “That’s what it is. It’s the sound of money”.  The success came to a sudden end when Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline both died in plane crashes and music from the United Kingdom started to take the US by storm in the 1960’s.

Another step back to the ‘roots’

Many country & western fans felt ill-served by the slick Nashville sound on the one hand and the songs of the Beatles and their peers on the other. This again opened the way to steps back towards ‘roots’. Responsible for this were artists like Wynn Stewart, Buck Owens, Bob Wills and Merle Haggard. Their so-called ‘Bakersfield sound’ (named after Bakersfield in California), was in keeping with the rawer honky tonk of the 1940s. Bakersfield is an area where countless migrants had settled who had been expelled from the Midwest, which was ravaged by dust storms (‘Dustbowl’). The Bakersfield sound would resonate into the 1970s and helped form the basis of ‘folk rock’. But more on that later.

Here, Merle Haggttt and Bob Wills sing the classic ‘San Antonio Rose’.

The Nashville sound had by no means disappeared after the slump in the 1950s. The style was now called ‘countrypolitan’ and a host of artists, such as Lynn Anderson, Charly Pride, Donna Fargo, Ray Stevens and Chystal Gayle can be counted among them.  From the 1970s onwards, to this list can be added, among others, John Denver (‘Annie’s Song’), Kenny Rogers (‘Lucille’) and, from the 1990s onwards, Garth Brooks and the Dixie Chicks. 

All these artists contributed to stretching the gap between traditional country & western and other styles of music ranging from rock, soul, funk and, in the 1990s, hip-hop. The country & western watchdog at the ‘Grand Ole Opry’ watched suspiciously but could not do much against the artists who also topped the exclusive country & western lists. However, the Dixie Chicks’ popularity ended abruptly when, during a performance, they criticized President George W. Bush for his attack on Iraq. Country & western radio and television stations promptly stopped playing their songs.

Here the song ‘Cowboy take me away’ by the Dixie Chicks (2006), which still has country & western influences in terms of content and instrumentation, but whose melody can hardly be classified as such anymore.

The question therefore was at which point a song no longer belongs to the country & western genre and can be banned from dedicated radio stations and charts. Enough test cases of singers who could be described as ‘country stars’ like Shania Twain, Tayler Swift, Carrie Underwood and Maren Morse presented themselves in the early 21ste century. Their genre was called ‘country pop’.

I’ll limit myself to one of Tayler Swift’s first songs ‘Tim McGray’ (2006). Country or not?

‘Americana’ and other styles

Institutional pressure made a return towards more ‘traditional’ country & western music inevitable for less fortunate singers. This resulted in musical styles designated by the terms ‘folk’, ‘Americana’, ‘country folk’ and ‘country rock’. An additional feature was that some musicians who could be counted in this category also had a decidedly left-wing political stance, which did not help their popularity in country circles. Examples include Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Donovan, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. 

George Strait is still closest to the traditional country & western style, and you can hear his best-known song ‘Amarillo by morning’ here (a 2016 recording).

More along the lines of ‘country rock’ goes music by Gram Parsons, also a member of The Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, also called the father of country rock. With Emmylou Harris, Gram has sung a series of duets. The Eagles also fit into this category.

An example of unadulterated ‘country rock’ is the Charlie Daniels Band, active from 1950 to 2020, the year of Charlie Daniels’ death. From this band, I showcase here its best-known song ‘The Devil went down to Georgia’ (1979).

Country & western has had a huge influence on contemporary music in the US, despite or perhaps because of the many crossovers and the fact that even the music of contemporary performers of ‘traditional’ country & western sounds very different from that of the Carter family or the Blue Grass Boys.  

Very different?  Again, not all.  There are several groups that draw full houses with their precise renditions of traditional country & western music. One such group is again a whole family with supporters: the Petersens.  They too have made their hobby their profession and with their enthusiasm they blow all the dust that may have settled on old songs. 

Here are the Petersens with Rocky Top, an authentic blue grass number from the 1940s. Incidentally, the Petersens also sing very different genres.  I have previously featured their rendition of the complete Bohemian Rhapsody on their traditional instrumental. That one also sounded like a bell.