Once again I am grateful to Monte Schulz for his input. In my previous post he correctly identifies the music to Jo Stafford’s song ‘No Other Love’ as being by Frédéric Chopin. It is Chopin’s Étude No. 3 in E Major, Op. 10. Here is a recording of the complete piece.
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Nov/Chopin.mp3|titles=Chopin’s Étude No. 3 in E Major, Op. 10]Category: Music
Coffee Lane and Moon River
The American Masters documentary Good Ol’ Charles Schulz was a surprise to me in a number of ways. I had expected the early years to be of greatest interest, but I feel the core of the program is actually the 10-minute segment about Coffee Lane. Monte Schulz characterizes his family’s time there as “those dear, dead days.”
Thirty seconds of Coffee Lane are on the video player. I took the picture in the preview frame from later in the segment. That’s a great shot, isn’t it?
[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/Schulz/Schulz.flv 400 300]
Thanks again to Monte for contributing a comment to this blog. The audio player has the music that reminds him so much of Coffee Lane in Sebastopol, CA — Henry Mancini’s ‘Moon River’. For myself, the equivalent would be Peter, Paul & Mary records on Adams Lane in Norwalk, CT.
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Nov/MR1.mp3|titles=Moon River by Henry Mancini]Back in St. Paul, one of Charles Schulz’s favorite recording artists was Jo Stafford. I have found no reference to her in the Michaelis book, and I think that’s a serious omission. Below is a song sung by Jo, called ‘No Other Love’.
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Nov/NoOtherLove.mp3|titles=No Other Love by Jo Stafford]This record was popular on the radio in September, 1950 — after Sparky had lost Donna, and before he married Joyce. Keep that in mind, play it again, and listen carefully to the lyrics.
‘Recording The Beatles’ at Museum of Making Music
Months ago I raved about the RTB Book — Recording The Beatles, by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew. This exquisite $100 tome isn’t for everyone, but for its intended audience it’s the finest work of its kind — the only work of its kind — ever published.
The authors will be speaking at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA, on November 17. Wish I could be there!
And I’ll take this opportunity to toss in another plug for Geoff Emerick’s fascinating remembrance, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of THE BEATLES.
Robert Ghoulet
No offense to the recently deceased intended, but it’s Halloween, and I couldn’t resist that bit of wordplay. And further, I admit that I didn’t come up with it; my buddy Dennis did, so blame him!
To read a story Mark Evanier has about the time he met Robert Goulet, click here. It seems there’s almost nobody, in showbiz anyway, who Evanier hasn’t met at least once. In this instance, there’s a punchline coming to the story that he won’t tell until somebody else passes away.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/OCT07/TheImpossibleDream.mp3]Short, Sweet Perfection
Caught the Buffalo Springfield song “On The Way Home” on Music Choice. Or should I say it caught me. Written by Neil Young, sung by Richie Furay, under two and a half minutes. Flawless. Music progressed so far, so fast in the 60’s. I’m so glad I was there to hear it happen.
[flv:/Video/OCT07/BuffaloSpringfield.flv 400 300]
Plastic Soul Lives
On October 17, Amazon.com created a section devoted to vinyl records.
One of D.F. Rogers’ possessions that I envy him having is the complete British catalog (or, should I say, “catalogue”) of Beatles albums put out by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs in the early 1980’s. The box set now goes for big bucks on eBay. I have a couple of the individual discs. The general consensus is the records sound better than the CDs; which is understandable, considering the digital mastering was done with first-generation equipment over 20 years ago.