Category: Music

Pop and circumstance

A few minutes ago I made an edit to this page on Wikipedia, about the Buckinghams. It had said, “The group opposed the producer’s treatment of the song “Susan” by adding a psychedelic section that sounded very similar to the Beatles’ song “A Day in the Life”, with an orchestral crescendo.”

http://youtu.be/aIacsdOfKAQ

I edited the article to note that the orchestral crescendo included a bit of Charles Ives’ Central Park in the Dark. Composed in 1906, it was, to say the least, ahead of its time and wasn’t performed publicly until 1946.

http://youtu.be/1qPZbHNuZzI

I love the song Susan, its production, the recording and, yes, the Charles Ives break too. In my opinion, the single coming after A Day in the Life is beside the point, because I think it’s far more significant that Susan came before Revolution 9.

http://youtu.be/LVf5Cr4M-F8

Recovering and restoring sounds and pictures

For Thanksgiving, WBUR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook rebroadcast a program from last year, about the discovery and restoration of the Bill Savory collection of Jazz radio broadcasts from the late 1930’s and early 40’s.

[audio:http://audio.wbur.org/storage/2010/09/onpoint_0910_2.mp3|titles=On Point: The Savory Collection]

It takes a lot of technical know-how and painstaking work to copy old 78 rpm transcription records and then clean them up digitally, without losing the vitality of the original performance. Compared to dealing with old audio recordings, handling and restoring movie film is an even more difficult and expensive undertaking. Here’s a fascinating short documentary on the Chaplin at Keystone restoration project.

http://youtu.be/voEGsQj4CPs

As wonderful as it is that computers have made it possible to salvage, reclaim, and reinvigorate these materials to an extent never before possible, I wonder about the future. There’s so much technology involved, with so many different digital formats, how will people be able to see and hear this stuff in a hundred years? Which reminds me. I have VHS home videos from a full-size camcorder that I need to transfer to the computer.

See the Saw Doctors joining Petula ‘Downtown’

This came in yesterday from across the Atlantic…

Hello from the UK

I have been enjoying your blog for some time now,especially the Petula Clark items. Are you aware of a new version of ‘Downtown’ by ‘The Saw Doctors’, out soon. It features new vocals from Petula.

All for now
Stephen Plant

Hey, wow, this is great! Thank you so much, Stephen. It’s always nice to know there’s somebody out there, and I should have been aware of the Saw Doctors doing Downtown with Pet, but I wasn’t until now. What splendid fun! The Saw Doctor’s contagious take on Petula’s magnificent Downtown gets released on December 9…

… and I see that the Saw Doctors will be in Massachusetts in March, playing downtown Northampton and Worcester (two good UK names there, a’right), and at the House of Blues in Boston on March 9, close enough to St. Patrick’s day to assure some good, loud times.

Anakin and Padme… Obi-Wan and Petula Clark??

As I have said numerous times, when Petula Clark burst onto the American Pop music scene with Downtown, we had no idea that she had been in the entertainment biz for 20 years. For a long time she was better known for being in English movies than for her singing. One of those movies is The Card, with Alec Guinness.

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/2011/Nov/TheCard.flv 512 384]

Pet arrived here as an unknown, and what a thrill it must have been for her to start all over and be such a huge success on her own terms. Happy Birthday, Petula!

All the Whos down in Whoville

Before I took time off from blogging I linked to a delightful and spirited Doctor Who video with the cast and crew before David Tennant left the series. The video was made poignant by the presence of Elisabeth Sladen, who passed away earlier this year. The song is I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Scottish duo of identical twin brothers who call themselves the Proclaimers.

Note: the movie clips are from Benny & Joon, with Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson.