Notes

The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:

The travails of the working class have often proven fruitful territory for American pop music. 

In 1962, for instance, Roy Orbison lamented “Workin’ for the Man.”  Twenty-one years later,  Donna Summer scored big with “She Works Hard for the Money,” her paean to the service employee.  And while Lee Dorsey sweated his ya-ya off “Working in the Coalmine” in 1966, the ultimate exultation of hard labor was another song about coal-mining that spent eight weeks perched at the peak of BILLBOARD’s pop charts more than a decade before Dorsey’s descent down the mineshaft. 

With its dark combination of violent braggadocio and fatalistic class consciousness, no other hit has limned the paradoxical pride of the American laborer like “Sixteen Tons.”  Although the song was written by country great Merle Travis, it was the deep, mellifluous voice of Tennessee Ernie Ford that first made the song a crossover hit, and eventually a national standard.

In truth, Ernest Jennings Ford never lugged number nine coal, and while he often described himself as “a little ol’ pea-picker,” he didn’t grow up on a farm either — although he did spend the summers of his teen-aged years working on a relative’s acreage near his hometown of Bristol on the Tennessee-Virginia border.  Upon graduating from Bristol High School in 1937, Ford landed a job as staff announcer at local radio station WOPI, the first of many gigs that would draw on his unique baritone voice.  From there, the young radio personality moved to a station in Atlanta, and then Knoxville, Tennessee.  Ford enlisted in the Army following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, rising to the rank of captain in the Army Air Corps as a bombardier trainer stationed in California.  (It was while there that Ford met military secretary Betty Heminger, who would soon become his wife until her death in 1989.)

Upon his discharge in 1945, Ford’s career shifted into overdrive.  When he was hired to host a country music show for a San Bernardino, California radio station, Ford developed the fast-talking, hopped-up hillbilly persona of “Tennessee Ernie,” which caught the ear of California radio mogul Loyal King, who brought him to Pasadena’s KXLA.  It was there that the fledgling singer and announcer first teamed with Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant (the guitar duo who would give his forthcoming boogie singles their rockin’ oomph) in the orchestra of popular disc jockey Cliffie Stone.

Stone’s connections at Capitol Records knew talent when they heard it, and signed Ford to a contract on January 21, 1949.  That same day, he cut his first hit record, “Tennessee Border.”  Within a few years, Ford had charted over a dozen hits, including two songs that made it into the Pop Top Ten in 1955: “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” and the forementioned “Sixteen Tons.”  In 1953, Ford initiated a new phase of his career when he first appeared in the reoccurring role of “Cousin Ernie” on the popular “I Love Lucy” sitcom.  Ford would eventually host his own popular variety show from 1956 until 1961.

We’ll talk more about the bucolic baritone Tennessee Ernie Ford — and his guitar cohorts, Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant — in this space in future weeks.  Bless your pea-pickin’ hearts if you can join us then. 

He made dada rock.

He died in flames — but for decades, he burned with the incandescent glow of his own off-kilter brilliance. Learn about the singular Vivian Stanshall… the man who had his fingers in mainstream and oddball classics like the Bonzo Dog Band’s “Rhinocratic Oaths,” Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells,” Stevie Winwood’s ARC OF A DIVER and his own RAWLINSON’S END in this edition of NOTES.

And you can read more about the Bonzos in “The Missing Link Between the Beatles and Monty Python.”

 

 NOTES - The Eccentric Genius of Vivian Stanshall [4:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:

As Craven posts this, we are less than two weeks from the day in the United States when ghosts and monsters can kick up their bony heels and revel in all things ghastly… but we should remember that ghouls in other parts of the world are not so lucky.

For instance, there is no Halloween in Italy.

But there is “Ognissanti” (All Saints’ Day) on November 1st, followed by “Il Giorno dei Morte” (the Day of the Dead) on November 2nd.  It is on this latter date that families bake cookies called “Ossa dei Morte,” or “Bones of the Dead”… a culinary indication that — even without a Halloween — Italians enjoy a pronounced sense of the macabre.

For further proof, one need travel no further than to the local “cinema teatro,” or movie theater, where for more than 40 years, Italian audiences have thrilled to the baleful shocks of the so-called “giallo.”  Giallo is the Italian word for “yellow,” and its use to describe horror mysteries dates back to 1929, when Italian publisher Mondadori issued a series of novels bedecked in bright yellow covers and inspired by American hardboiled detective literature.

In 1963, the giallo leapt to the silver screen when cinematographer-turned-director Mario Bava — already a 24-year veteran of the Italian film industry — helmed his story of serial murder called LA RAGAZZA CHE SAPEVA TROPPO, or THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.  Starring American genre favorite John Saxon (and featuring characters with the noble name of Craven), THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH established some of the stylistic markers that would come to characterize gialli, and additionally would prove to be a big influence on Sean S. Cunningham’s influential slasher opus FRIDAY THE 13TH nearly 20 years later. 

Over the next few decades, Bava would continue to churn out gialli and was soon joined by other filmmakers like Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento.  Argento (whose previous credits included co-writing Sergio Leone’s masterpiece ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) in particular became associated with the giallo genre, and was soon dubbed “the European Hitchcock” for his visually stylish — and relentlessly gory — thrillers.

In 1975, a relatively unsuccessful Italian progressive rock band called Cherry Five was hired to compose the soundtrack for Argento’s latest giallo, the now-classic DEEP RED.  Led by keyboardist Claudio Simonetti and guitarist Massimo Morante, Cherry Five changed their name to Goblin for the project — and landed the biggest hit of their career thus far.  The soundtrack to DEEP RED topped the Italian pop charts for 12 weeks, and marked the beginning of a long working relationship with Argento. 

We’ll talk more about Goblin in future weeks.  Please check back for more on these “dons of the dead.”

Just taking a moment to apologize for the long gap between posts here on the NOTES Blog and Podcast.  As some of you know, Craven has been going through some major life changes during the past few months, including moving into a new home, and it’s been a major distraction from the mundane — but important! — duties like updating the blog.  But the dust has begun to settle a bit, and I intend to post new entries here in the next day or two, and will hopefully be more consistent thereafter.  I thank those of you who have continued to check in, and especially those of you who have commented here in recent weeks.  Except you spammers.

And while I’m speaking to you spammers: Why is it that you folks only target the blog-post entitled, “The Race of Ernest Hogan?”  At the time of this writing, Craven has deleted nearly three-thousand spam comments, most of them affixed to this particular post.  Stop it, please.  Bad spammers!  Bad!  

(However, if you’re not a spammer, do check out that post.  It’s Craven’s personal favorite.)

See you soon. 

Besides Wanda, Janis and Lorrie, there were other great — but lesser-known — female rockabilly singers.

The rockabilly era also saw many great singles released by more obscure female artists.  Learn about some of these lesser-known lasses — including the amazing Sparkle Moore — in this episode of NOTES.

 

 NOTES - The Ladies of Rockabilly, Pt. 4: The Lesser-Known Ladies [5:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

She may have been young when she recorded with brother Larry in the 1950s, but Lorrie Collins was a real “Rock Boppin’ Baby.”

The Collins Kids were young and squeaky clean — but that didn’t stop thousands of rockabilly fans from fantasizing about pretty Lorrie Collins.  Learn more about Lorrie and her brother Larry in this episode of NOTES.

 

 NOTES - The Ladies of Rockabilly, Pt. 3: The Collins Kids [5:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Cock your pistol and rooty-toot-toot: Janis Martin was a musical straight-shooter.

Less well-known than Wanda Jackson to the general public, Janis Martin is nonetheless revered by rockabilly fans for the vivacious, hot-rockin’ singles she released in the 1950s and early 1960s.  Learn more about “the female Elvis” in this episode of NOTES.

 

 NOTES - The Ladies of Rockabilly, Pt. 2: Janis Martin [4:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well you could talk about her, say that she was mean.  She’d blow your head off, baby, with nitroglycerine.

They were red hot and icy cool.  The ladies of rockabilly redefined the role of the female singer in the nascent days of rock n’ roll.  Our four-part look at the hep kittens begins with the story of Wanda Jackson, the original “Fujiyama Mama.”

For more on the ladies of rockabilly, see “Praising the Ladies of Rockabilly.”

 

 NOTES - The Ladies of Rockabilly, Pt. 1: Wanda Jackson [5:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:

Here’s a question you won’t find in Trivial Pursuits:  What was the the first American pop hit?

The answer, as Bill Clinton might tell you, depends on your definition of terms.  The earliest songs to sweep the nation were political ditties that date back to the nascent days of the United States.  For example, there was the “Liberty Song,” the lyrics of which were printed in 1768 in the BOSTON GAZETTE, and which became a rallying cry for colonists seeking to establish a new country.  Another example is the more familiar “Yankee Doodle,” which began its long life as a Dutch harvest song in the 15th century.  British army surgeon Richard Schuckburgh adapted the tune into an anti-American air during the French and Indian War, and it was originally sung by English troops until the very Yanks it ridiculed adopted it as the patriotic standard we know it as today.  In 1775, the first sentimental song to infiltrate the national psyche was “Banks of the Dee,” which told the tale of a Scottish soldier who leaves his lover to fight in America. 

But in its more modern sense of “music industry bestseller,” the first American pop hit was an 1892 sentimental tearjerker called “After the Ball.”  Written and self-published by an enterprising and self-taught Milwaukee song-scribe by the name of Charles Kassel Harris, the song’s story of lost love apparently spoke to many.  “After the Ball” became the first sheet music to sell several million copies, and was translated into many languages and published the world over.  The overwhelming success of “After the Ball” led Harris to move his songwriting company to New York City, and specifically the Union Square area where other music publishers, like M. Whitmark & Sons and F.B. Haviland, were also settling. 

Although its physical setting would eventually move uptown a few blocks to West 28th Street, it was this aggregation of music publishers that formed the nucleus of what was to become known as “Tin Pan Alley,” that New York neighborhood where America’s greatest songwriters churned out standards that are still well-known today.  Protected by then-new copyright laws, publishers began to see the moneymaking possibilities of popular music, and this formerly chaotic line started to stabilize into a rule-bound industry wherein songs were written to order by staff composers following the latest musical trends, and driven by market surveys and statistical analysis. 

 Songs like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Shine On, Harvest Moon” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” originated in Tin Pan Alley (which was christened thusly by reporter Monroe Rosenfeld for the constant piano clatter that emanated from its storefronts).  Among the great American songsmiths who got their starts in Tin Pan Alley were Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and George Gershwin.

We’ll examine the history of Tin Pan Alley, as well as its best- and least-known songwriters (including the prolific Yankee Doodle Boy, George M. Cohan), in this space in the near future.  Join us then as we explore the era when the art of music morphed into an industry.

In space, everyone can hear you sing.

In this final installment of our look at the music of STAR TREK, we examine how Gene Roddenberry’s mythos has beamed down over the years to inspire and inform modern pop acts.

 

 NOTES - The Music of STAR TREK, Pt. 3: Federation Pop [3:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download