The 15 Best Motown Movie Moments

superThe Motown sound was radio gold, and it turned out to work well in movies too. Berry Gordy Jr.’s record label turned out soul, R&B, and funk hits that have been used to set the tone in a host of movie scenes over the years. When a Motown song plays in your favorite movie, it’s hard not to sing and dance along. Here are 15 of the most memorable Motown movie moments.

1. “Good Morning Heartache” by Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues

Uploaded to YouTube by Diana Ross

Diana Ross sings Billie Holiday’s famous song in Motown’s biopic of the legendary jazz singer. She was nominated for an Oscar, and the soundtrack repopularized Holiday’s music as it hit number one on the Billboard chart.

2. “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” by G.C. Cameron in Cooley High

Uploaded to YouTube by Boys II Men

G.C. Cameron’s version of the soul song didn’t make much of a splash upon release in 1975, but its use in the funeral scene of Cooley High made it a cultural touchstone. Many others sang “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” over the years as a goodbye song, and Boyz II Men made a radio hit out of it in 1991.

3. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder in The Thing

Uploaded to YouTube by Stevie Wonder

It’s the perfect song to turn up (even when a recent gunshot victim is yelling to turn the music down), and it’s the perfect song for a foreboding scene hinting at a strange presence on an Antarctic research camp.

4. “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by The Temptations in The Big Chill

Uploaded to YouTube by The Temptations

Although its soundtrack is chock full of Motown hits, The Big Chill’s best musical moment comes as the group of friends finds solace in dancing to an old song during a difficult time. The song was included in American Film Institute’s “100 Years … 100 Songs” program in 2004.

5. “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder in The Woman in Red

Uploaded to YouTube by Steve Wonder / Universal Music Group

Stevie Wonder’s 1984 megahit was the best-selling Motown song ever in the U.K. Gene Wilder’s film “The Woman in Red” included other original Wonder songs, like “Love Light in Flight” and some duets with Dionne Warwick.

6. “The Tracks of My Tears” by The Miracles in Platoon

Uploaded to YouTube by Smokey Robinson – Topic / Atlantic Records

After serving in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Oliver Stone wrote a script called Break that he struggled for decades to get made into a movie. When he was finally successful, the film Platoon was roundly praised for its realistic portrayal of the Vietnam War, both in terms of horrific combat and scenes like this one that show companionship wrought from the conflict.

7. “Nowhere to Run” by Martha and the Vandellas in Good Morning, Vietnam

Uploaded to YouTube by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas – Topic / Universal Music Group

Robin Williams’ kooky performance as an Army radio deejay during the Vietnam War earned him his first Oscar nomination. The movie’s soundtrack is a spirited list of ’60s pop music, and it includes Martha and the Vandellas’ hit “Nowhere to Run.”

8. “Do You Love Me” by The Contours in Dirty Dancing

Uploaded to YouTube by The Contours / Universal Music Group

Baby Houseman gets her first taste of dirty dancing, watermelon in hand, at a secret staff party in the Catskills. The Contours were an early Motown success, and Dirty Dancing renewed their popularity in 1987.

9. “Ball of Confusion” by The Temptations in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

Uploaded to YouTube by The Temptations / Universal Music Group

Whoopi Goldberg trains a choir of nuns to perform Motown hits in Sister Act. In the sequel, they’re seasoned soul sisters with a heavenly Temptations routine that more than does the song justice. Kathy Najimy and Mary Wickes are comedy gold.

10. “Baby Love” by Diana Ross and the Supremes in Jackie Brown

Uploaded to YouTube by The Supremes / Believe SAS

Quentin Tarantino’s love of funk and soul music is on display in this 1997 tribute to blaxploitation films. Hattie Winston serenades an aloof Robert De Niro with a classic Supremes song in full royal blue sparkling garb in a short but memorable scene.

11. “Machine Gun” by The Commodores in Boogie Nights

Uploaded to YouTube by The Commodores / Universal Music Group

The Commodores’s dynamite clavinet instrumental was used widely as a theme in the 1970s and 80s (as well as Beastie Boys’s “Hey Ladies”). Porn star Dirk Diggler shows off his disco moves in his new platform shoes to the song in Paul Thomas Anderson’s chaotic Boogie Nights.

12. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in Stepmom

Uploaded to YouTube by Movieclips

The 1999 drama about a family being ripped apart and mended back together uses one of Motown’s best duets. As a woman who has just received a cancer diagnosis along with news that her ex-husband will remarry soon, Jackie reconnects with her children by lip syncing Marvin Gaye’s and Tammi Terrell’s hit.

13. “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye in High Fidelity

Uploaded to YouTube by Marvin Gaye / Universal Music Group

In his breakout film role, Jack Black sings Marvin Gaye’s sensual masterpiece “Let’s Get It On.” The song has been used in countless commercials and movies to set a sexy tone, but never was it sung quite like it was by the Tenacious D frontman.

14. “Super Freak” by Rick James in Little Miss Sunshine

Uploaded to YouTube by Movieclips

Unbeknownst to the rest of their family, junior beauty pageant hopeful Olive and her grandfather prepare a dance routine to Rick James’s risqué funk hit about a “very kinky girl” that you “don’t take home to mother.”

15. “I Want You Back” by Jackson 5 in Guardians of the Galaxy

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Uploaded to YouTube by The Jackson 5 – Topic / Universal Music Group

The old school soundtracks of the popular Marvel franchise feature several Motown hits, but the most iconic among them is perhaps “I Want You Back,” playing to a dancing Baby Groot in his adorable resurrection scene.

Featured image: Shutterstock

Wit’s End: They’ve Turned the Soundtrack of My Youth into Muzak

Read more from Maya Sinha’s column, Wit’s End.

I was in a department store, shopping for items the Victorians called “unmentionables,” when a 1992 song from the British band The Cure began to play.

From hidden speakers, under the bright retail lights, lead vocalist Robert Smith  — a pale Goth in eyeliner, lipstick, and a tangle of ink-black hair — sang the opening bars of “Friday I’m in Love.”

This song was deeply familiar from my high school and college years. Back then, Smith was a romantic figure: a moody, sensitive rebel who fronted an alt-rock band. Though he strove to look three-quarters dead, he would not be caught dead in the women’s underwear section of the flagship store in a suburban mall.

Yet here he was in 2020. A wave of cognitive dissonance crashed over me. Why was the store piping in The Cure, a poignant reminder of my vanished youth? Was nothing sacred?

For Americans born between 1965 and 1980, the generation known as Gen X, this is now a common experience while shopping. We select lettuce from a superstore crisper to the rapturous vocals of Belinda Carlisle in “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” (1987). We try on sensible shoes to the late Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries singing “Linger” (1993). Checking our tween into the orthodontist’s office, we’re assailed with INXS’s darkly urgent “Devil Inside” (1987) or REO Speedwagon’s earnest “Keep On Loving You” (1980). We gas up our SUVs to the sound of giddy infatuation in Sting’s “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” (1981).

Decades later, these 1980s and 1990s pop songs still pack a wallop. In a recent essay, Gen X writer Meghan Daum wrote that she’s stopped listening to four decades of pop music, songs that evoke so many bittersweet memories that she now avoids them “as if avoiding pain.”

These one-time radio hits are powerfully evocative, Daum writes, because music “embeds itself into our emotions, often burrowing far deeper than the memories of the events that spurred those emotions. From there, the songs we love become the half-life of our emotions. They are whatever’s left of whatever was going on at the time.”

For people in their 40s and 50s, pop songs conjure memories of childhood, junior high, high school, summers, friends, significant others, college, jobs, holidays, weddings, divorces, and family events. Just little things like that. No biggie.

But if you’re trying to avoid the pain (or mixed feelings) these songs evoke, too bad: The hits of 1980-1999 are playing on continuous loop at the grocery store, a cavernous building you disconsolately roam four times a week. Good luck buying organic peanut butter without crying, Mom! Have fun picking out dog food while tears of regret and forever-lost chances burn your eyes!

The cruel irony of listening to bouncy pop songs from junior year while tossing headache medicine and nutritional supplements called Change-O-Life into the shopping cart is apparently lost on the corporate overlords who devised this torture. Why have they done this, desecrating our memories by canning our music?

Piping music into public spaces was the brainchild of U.S. Army Major General George O. Squier, a renowned inventor who devised a means of playing phonograph records over electric power lines. In 1934, after radio took off, Squier founded the Muzak Corporation, which piped commercial-free music into hotels and restaurants. “The music itself was newly recorded versions of popular songs, but now produced with purposefully mellow, orchestral arrangements,” historian Peter Blecha wrote in 2012.

Research in the 1940s showed that music could influence behavior, and during World War II, Muzak was used to motivate factory and military workers. In the postwar years, the goal shifted to keeping customers in stores, with “soothing, saccharine sounds being pumped into dentists’ offices, grocery stores, airports, and shopping malls all across the nation and overseas,” Blecha explains.

On their journey to the moon in 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts calmed themselves by listening to Muzak. Back on Earth, however, soporific versions of hit songs became known as “elevator music.” In 2011, Mood Media announced that it had acquired Muzak for $345 million, adding to its portfolio of commercial music services for retailers, hotels, restaurants, gyms, and banks. Now supplying music for 470,000 commercial locations around the globe, the company was “delivering unique experiences to millions of people daily.”

Suddenly, elevator music was out; nostalgic pop playlists were in.

In 2020, music still affects shoppers’ moods, but not necessarily in a good way. We Gen Xers feel vaguely insulted when the soundtracks of our youth are cynically used to sell us things. We are this close to buying everything we need online, having it delivered by drones, and listening to our 1980s playlists when we want to, how we want to, in our own homes!

Retailers should take a page from video game designers, who similarly want to keep players engaged for as long as possible. The Legend of Zelda games have gorgeous, critically acclaimed soundtracks, setting the bar for ambient music that’s enjoyable for people of all ages. Why can’t we have original mood music in stores? (Attention, composition majors! A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.)

Until that day, I’ll have to listen to The Cure while going about my mundane errands, draining the music of all meaning. It makes me want to protest in some small but visible way, perhaps by wearing head-to-toe black, dying my hair with shoe polish, and piercing my earlobe with a nail.

By the time I get out of a store that’s recycled my memories to sell toothpaste and dish soap, I’m feeling a little Goth myself.

Featured image: Robert Smith of The Cure, 1985 (AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo)

We Are the World: 10 Things You Didn’t Know

The 1985 American Music Awards made history for a few reasons. Lionel Richie won six awards, Prince took home three, and Michael Jackson was shut out. But that was just the opening act. Later that night, Richie, Jackson, and a number of other artists finished cutting a record that turned out to be a massive worldwide hit while throwing a focus on a humanitarian crisis. Here are 10 things you didn’t know, or maybe didn’t remember, about “We Are the World.”

1. It Followed the Lead of Band Aid.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid at Live Aid (Uploaded to YouTube by Live Aid 1985

The first big charity single of the 80s was “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Released under a supergroup named Band Aid that was organized by Bob Geldof (of The Boomtown Rats and star of the film Pink Floyd’s The Wall) and Midge Ure, the song featured members of U2, Wham!, Culture Club, Duran Duran, and a number of other stars from the UK. Geldof would perform on “We Are the World” as part of the chorus and later organize Live Aid and Live 8 with Ure.

2. Harry Belafonte Provided the American Spark.

Belafonte had the notion to put together a similar charity record using the biggest stars in America. Belafonte pitched the idea to music manager Ken Kragen, who took the idea to his clients, Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie. They brought in Stevie Wonder and producer Quincy Jones. Jones recruited Michael Jackson. By then, the momentum was unstoppable.

3. Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie Did the Writing.

The official video for We Are the World. (Uploaded to YouTube by USAforAfricaVEVO)

To record a charity song … you have to have the song. Richie and Jackson teamed up, working on it for a week. Jackson took a version to Jones and Richie that included instrumentation and a chorus. They ended up reaching their final version of the song on January 21, 1985.  Recording began the next day at Lion Share Recording Studio, which was owned by Rogers. The final night of vocals with soloists and the group chorus was set for the A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood after the AMAs when everyone would be in one place and would be more easily assembled and managed.

4. Prince Was Supposed to Be There.

While accounts vary as to why Prince ultimately wasn’t involved, the original plan had been to feature a section with he and Michael Jackson trading parts with each other.  One story goes that Prince had to bail overzealous bodyguards out of jail after the AMAs, an event that was later parodied on Saturday Night Live in a sketch featuring Hulk Hogan and Mr. T as the bodyguards and Billy Crystal as Prince. Regardless, Prince and the Revolution did contribute a separate song to the We Are The World album, a number titled “4 the Tears in Your Eyes.”

5. And Madonna Wanted to Be.

For her part, Madonna was just making her commercial breakthrough, having just hit #1 for the first time with “Like A Virgin.” Jackson invited her, but her management advised her to decline because she’d have to cancel dates on her “Virgin Tour.” The thought was that, as a somewhat new artist with a big fresh hit, she needed to stick to the plan. It ended up working out for her, as her next single “Material Girl,” hit #2, and “Crazy for You” would replace “We Are the World” at #1 later in the spring.

6. One Sign Solved a lot of Problems.

When the artists began to gather, they found a sign on the studio door that read, “Check your egos at the door.” It was a funny and humbling reminder that the group was gathered for a larger purpose. It must have worked; while there were individual debates about how to sing certain parts or conferences over how to deliver certain lines, the group worked together all night, completing the song by the following morning.

7.  The Cast Represented Multiple Generations.

The assembled array of talent was pretty incredible and spanned a number of genres, styles, and decades. Belafonte and Ray Charles were something of the elder statesmen. Jackson, Wonder, Smokey Robinson, and Diana Ross were among those that came up at Motown in the 60s and early 70s. Bob Dylan was, well, Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen, Steve Perry, and Lindsay Buckingham, among others, represented the rock side, for example, while Rogers, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings brought in the country. In all, more than 45 voices are heard on the track, with 21 having identifiable solo bits. The wide net led to some genuinely thrilling, unique moments, as when Dylan and Charles sing together.

8. Why in the name of the Blues Brothers was Dan Aykroyd There?

The way that Aykroyd himself tells the story, it was purely by accident. Though Aykroyd did have a music background as “Elwood Blues,” one half of The Blues Brothers with the late John Belushi, he basically wound up at the recording session by happenstance. Aykroyd was looking for a money manager and spoke to a talent manager that asked him if he wanted to join the group. So he did.

9. The Impact Was Immediate.

The single, credited to USA for Africa, hit stores in March; the initial pressing of 800,000 copies sold out in days. The single would go on to sell 8 million in the U.S. The song and the album would generate more than $75 million toward famine relief. The song has been updated at various times and used for other purposes, such as relief in Haiti.

10. The Impact Continues.

Pink Floyd reunited with Roger Waters at Live 8 for global action against poverty. (Uploaded to YouTube by Pink Floyd)

The one-two punch of Band-Aid and USA for Africa provided the launch-pad for Geldof’s Live Aid, the first of the mega-charity concerts; held in London and Philadelphia, it was broadcast to nearly 2 billion people on July 13, 1985. The “World” session also gave Willie Nelson the idea for Farm Aid, the concert series aimed at helping farmers in America.

Remarkably, the “World” song and album still generate money for the charity today. It kickstarted a wave of charitable projects as well. The contemporaneous “Tears Are Not Enough” by a similar Canadian supergroup called Northern Lights (which included Bryan Adams, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, and Geddy Lee of Rush, among others) was also included on the album. The heavy metal community put together their own famine-relief record, Hear’n Aid, the following year; it featured artists like Ronnie James Dio and members of Judas Priest, Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, and more, while boasting an ensemble of lead guitarists in addition to the vocalists. A wave of further singles continued throughout the 80s, targeted at a variety of issues. “That’s What Friends Are For” by Wonder, Dionne Warwick, Elton John, and Gladys Knight was a #1 hit for AmFAR (American Federation for AIDS Research), while “Sun City” by Artists United Against Apartheid brought together artists from rock, rap, punk, jazz, funk, Latin, and world music to shine a light on the problems in South Africa. Charitable singles still abound, with the most recent high-visibility project being Lil Dicky’s star-filled “Earth” from 2019.

The Laziest Musical Instrument in the World

You’re an ambitious hostess in a turn-of-the-century, middle-class home. Your dinner guests have finished their mutton pies and cream pudding and they’re bouncing off the papered walls from the café noir. You’d planned to keep them entertained with some trendy parlor games, but charades isn’t going to cut it for this crowd. They need music, a group sing-along of “Sweet Adeline” or “Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie,” but there isn’t a pianist in the bunch.

What’s a dilettante to do?

Enter the player piano. For the first time in history, attractive music filled homes without the need for a learned (human) player. With a steady pump of the foot pedals, or treadles, your piano could play itself, the black and white keys moving as if fingered by a poltergeist. Your dinner guests have a grand time and the party is saved, thanks to pneumatic technology.

Though the player piano is understood now as an obsolete oddity — a short-lived steampunk quirk of simpler times — the instrument was a revolutionary step forward for bringing music into new places at the dawn of the 20th century. Piano rolls, the perforated “code” of the player piano, also remain as unique historical record of the stylings of iconic pianists of the period.

In 1901, piano manufacturers began advertising a contradictory claim in this magazine to anyone who ever longed for marches and ragtime music in their very own abode. The promise was that even the least practiced musical amateur could turn out perfect tunes with their new technology. At once, companies like Wilcox & White or The Cable Company insisted that there was “no musical talent on the part of the performer required” and yet “it enables you to play with the interpretation of the composer.”

So, which was it?

In reality, the operator did little more than power the musical device, adjusting its speed, as it rendered tunes from piano rolls in full splendor on the piano. It was live music — technically — but the “pianist” needn’t know the first thing about how to play. Before radios and record players increased music access to every corner of the country, the player piano brought professional music to consumers for a steeper price ($250 in 1905, equivalent to about $7,300 in 2019).

The first automated piano players were not the built-in models that instrument enthusiasts readily recognize today. They were an entirely separate piece of furniture, like the Angelus Orchestral, that the operator placed before their piano. These piano players (as opposed to player pianos) were developed and sold in the 1890s and in the first decade of the 1900s, and they played 65 keys instead of the full 88. Sitting behind the piano player and pressing a foot pedal or turning a crank would apply pressure to a bellows that runs a pneumatic motor — not unlike the early vacuum cleaners of the 19th century — and felt-tipped rods would strike down on the keys in accordance with the rolling paper guide.

Within a few years, manufacturers were moving the player mechanism into the piano, and the resulting streamlined instrument became more marketable. Historian Harvey Roehl said in this magazine in 1975, “As the wealth of the nation and of individuals increased, more money and time became available to individuals to satisfy their musical wants, but then — as today — there was one great big catch to learning how to play a musical instrument: One had to spend a lot of time and energy to go through the learning process, and most persons simply lack the patience and the motivation to do this.”

Dozens of companies began manufacturing player, or “reproducing,” pianos, but one company made its name synonymous with them: the Aeolian Company. Their product’s moniker — pianola — became interchangeable with player pianos in the years leading up to the first World War. In 1909, Aeolian claimed they had fought 17 infringements on their precious trademark, what Joseph Fox in American Heritage called “a piano and something more … a musical word for a musical object: quite perfect.”

Player pianos — especially the pianola — held full-page, color ads in the teens and twenties promising to “give your brains a holiday” or “hear Paderewski play his famous minuet” or even to aid in teaching your children music. Depending on who you asked, the mechanical piano was either a dismal metaphor for the decline of artistry or an exciting tool for democratizing the classics.

In Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box (1932), the bumbling pair struggle to deliver a piano to a second-floor apartment, battling stairs, pulleys, and an unfortunately-located water feature. When they finally get the instrument to its rightful room, they discover it’s a player piano. The owner storms in, declares “they are mechanical blunderbusses!” and takes an axe to it, pausing to salute, of course, when the piano starts rolling the national anthem. In 1952, Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano, depicted the machine as a symbol of automation and dehumanization in an increasingly industrialized world.

It wasn’t only an apparatus for the unartistic, though. For some, the player piano gave way to a new kind of art: crafting impossible compositions.

Among the European creative scene in the 1920s that included James Joyce, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway, New Jerseyan George Antheil gained a reputation as an enfant terrible of music. When he conceived his Ballet mécanique while living in an apartment above Shakespeare & Company in Paris, he called it “the first piece of music that has been composed OUT OF and FOR machines, ON EARTH.” The score called for 16 player pianos, xylophones, bass drums, a tam-tam, a siren, and three airplane propellers. Impossibly, the player pianos were all to be synchronized. Since this could only be done in theory, Anthiel settled for one player piano in live performances of his “ballet,” its keys emanating a futuristic cacophony more akin to Kraftwerk than Stravinsky. When he took his not-quite-realized performance to Carnegie Hall, the audience was nearly blown away by the propellers and he was laughed out of town.

Conlon Nancarrow, an offbeat musician and American expatriate, found the player piano in the 1930s, and he also saw it as a tool for taking his music beyond the confines of human capability. Nancarrow acquired a machine to cut his own piano rolls in the ’40s, and he used it to compose avant-garde music that defies the speed and dexterity of human hands. His compositions, like “Study for Player Piano No. 37” and “No. 40” sound like dueling pianos in some otherworldly cabaret — not exactly the kind of fodder for after-dinner sing-alongs.

As expected, most consumers weren’t using their player pianos to delve into the oeuvres of experimental sound. They wanted to keep up with popular musical trends and play ragtime and classical greats in their own home. Since the German Welte-Mignon company developed a machine that allowed pianists to record directly onto a piano roll in 1904, American companies competed fiercely to get the top performers into their offerings. Zez Confrey’s “Kitten on the Keys” was popular, as were rolls made by Percy Grainger and George Gershwin. Aeolian boasted that Josef Hofmann and Harold Bauer made rolls exclusively for the Duo-Art Pianola.

Millions of piano rolls were produced in the early century, many of which have been archived by the Stanford University Piano Roll Project. Their head librarian, Jerry McBride, says these rolls hold a unique — though controversial — significance in sound recording history. “Mahler made rolls, Camille Saint-Saëns,” he says. “There are a handful of rolls by Debussy, and these are the only recordings we have of Debussy playing his own solo piano music. That’s all we have of Debussy playing piano, which is amazing.”

One reason McBride finds them exciting is the potential to study piano-playing styles of the past. “A number of pianists who were recording at that time would have learned piano around the mid-1800s,” he says, “so we can look at these rolls to understand how piano was played in the 19th century, which is quite different than how it’s played today.” McBride notes that a surprising tendency of early century pianists was to add notes and expressions that deviated from the score, unlike the strict playing we’ve come to know. “They were much freer with their approach to interpretation than today,” he says.

The part music archivists can’t agree on is how important these rolls are in understanding piano playing of the past. On one hand, the rhythm and notes on them are precise replications, and sound recordings of the time are scratchy and low-quality. On the other hand, piano rolls can’t express tempo and dynamics of the music as precisely. These were often marked onto the roll by a bystander musician. According to the Pianola Institute, “Duo-Art rolls are more akin to portraits than to photographs, but a portrait can often be the more telling of the two.”

Still, a Rachmaninoff piano roll is sure to be more enjoyable and lively than one of his 1919 recordings with Thomas Edison.

But sound recording got better. In the 1930s, the phonograph, radio, and the Great Depression delivered death blows to the player piano, and it became a memory as quickly as it had spread throughout the nation.

The player piano never completely went away, though. In fact, you can still turn your piano into a self-playing one (for north of 2,700 dollars) if you’d like, and this time around, you can control the songs with your iPad. If, somehow, you still have a player piano that plays paper rolls, you can still buy those too, from Artie Shaw to Britney Spears. The company that produces them, QRS, has been in business since 1900, and they’re proud of their historical trade. Their website claims, “the piano roll has lasted longer than any other standard for recording and reproducing music, and an 80-year-old roll will still sound the same today as the day it was punched.”

We have progressed considerably in sound technology in 100 years, though. These days, if you find yourself with antsy houseguests, there’s no cause for alarm if you don’t have a classic Duo-Art Pianola in the parlor. Just blurt out, “Alexa, play ‘Scott Joplin’s New Rag,’” to get the party started.

Featured image: QRS advertisement from February 4, 1922 issue of The Saturday Evening Post

The 25 Greatest TV Themes of All Time Part 2: Spoken-Word

Read Part One of our look at the Greatest TV Themes here.
Read Part Three: The 40 Greatest Animated TV Series Theme Songs here.

How do you determine the greatest TV show themes of all time? It’s a daunting task. Consider that, in 2016, more than 1400 shows ran on prime-time television in the United States; more than 400 were original scripted programs. And that doesn’t include streaming. Most of those shows have some kind of introduction with music, stretching the line even further. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, suggested that bands should be considered for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the basis of “impact, influence, and awesomeness,” so we’ll use a similar criteria of catchiness, memorability, and appropriateness for the shows. We’ll also be breaking this list into three distinct categories: live-action, spoken-word/voice-over, and animated intro themes. A few months ago, we brought you the greatest live-action themes. Today, we bring you part 2: spoken-word/voice-over themes.

 

Honorable Mention: Forever Knight (1992-1996)

The opening to Forever Knight (Uploaded to YouTube by ArcoFlagellant)

While not quite great enough to make the list, the opening of Forever Knight does show what a good spoken-word intro does. The best of them establish a premise, which is why they’re so pervasively used in science-fiction, fantasy, and horror programming; they clue the audience into what the show is all about so they can hit the ground running. Forever Knight does that, letting you know that Nick was “brought across” (that is, turned into a vampire) centuries ago while giving you some insight into the ongoing plot.

25. Highlander: The Series (1992-1998)

The opening to Highlander (Uploaded to YouTube by Manticore Escapee)

Based on the cult classic film starring Christopher Lambert, the series gave us Adrian Paul as the immortal Duncan MacLeod (the cousin of Lambert’s Connor from the films). The show proved popular enough the it generated both live-action and animated spin-offs, and Duncan eventually joined Connor on the big screen in 2000 before returning in a television film in 2007. The spoken-word intros changed frequently over the years, adding nuances of plot and situation.

24. Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)

The opening to Xena: Warrior Princess (Uploaded to YouTube by ShakiAldi)

The wildly popular Xena (Lucy Lawless) spun out of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, a surprise 1994-1999 hit. The two series ranked among the most highly rated syndicated shows in the world during their runs. An unapologetic female action hero on the air during a time when there were precious few, Xena appealed to multiple audiences. The show contained plenty of action, frequently delivered with a nod and a wink. The over-the-top narration set the stage perfectly.

23. Knight Rider (1982-1986)

The opening to Knight Rider (Uploaded to YouTube by NBC Classics)

“A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man . . .who does not exist.”

Sounds pretty cool, right? David Hasselhoff played Michael Knight (originally Michael Long, a policeman who was shot and presumed dead, but had his face fixed and a new identity given to him by the Knight Foundation). Knight’s partner was KITT, an artificially intelligent talking car voiced by William Daniels (of St. Elsewhere and Boy Meets World). The introductory narration is provided by Richard Baseheart, who played Knight’s patron, Wilton Knight; the character died in the first episode, but his voice remained.

22. Kung Fu (1972-1975)

The intro to Kung Fu (Uploaded to YouTube by videoblast)

The Kung Fu intro pulls the trick of using dialogue from the show, but it does it in a way that explains the training and journey of Kwai Chang Kane (David Carradine; interestingly young Kane in the intro is played by David’s younger brother and fellow actor, Keith). With this set-up, you understand a bit more about Kane before he went to walk the Earth.

21. Hart to Hart (1979-1984, plus eight made-for-TV movies)

The opening of Hart to Hart (Uploaded to YouTube by TheWraith2006)

Created by novelist Sidney Sheldon, Hart to Hart worked off of the same vibe as Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man: rich couple solves crimes. Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers played the Harts, while Lionel Stander played their assistant, Max (who also delivered the voice-over). The show proved popular enough that it returned for a series of TV-movies in 1993; Stander appeared in the first five before his death in late 1994.

20. Quantum Leap (1989-1993)

The various openings of Quantum Leap (Uploaded to YouTube by TVNostalgia)

Quantum Leap didn’t have the voice-over intro right away, but it did acquire one in season three.  Not only does it explain the premise (Dr. Sam Beckett is leaping from body to body across time, trying to set things right), but it also strikes a plaintive note of danger (telling us that Beckett just one day hopes to leap home). The final episode contained one of the great “down” endings in TV history, as a final title card tells us, “Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.”

19. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981)

The season two intro Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (Uploaded to YouTube by Jack Taylor)

Buck Rogers is one of the longest-running science fiction heroes in popular culture, having first appeared in the 1928 novella Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan. Since then, Rogers has appeared in comics, novels, film serials, TV series, and theatrical movies. NBC’s TV series launched with a theatrical film that featured a theme song, “Suspension” by Kipp Lennon. That melody was used in the instrumental theme for the TV series. The film’s opening narration by William Conrad was edited down for the first season; in the second season, a new voice-over was delivered by Hank Simms.

18. Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979)

The intro for Battlestar Galactica (Uploaded to YouTube by NBC Classics)

“There are those that believe that life here . . . began out there.” Such are the words of John Colicos, who also played recurring antagonist Baltar. Certainly, BSG is the only show with a voice-over that references the Toltecs and the Mayans. The narration gives you air of mysticism before the soaring theme by the great Stu Phillips crashes in.

17. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-present)

The intro for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Uploaded to YouTube by salehesam101)

With 458 episodes and counting, SVU will break the record for the longest-running American prime-time live-action series this month. Certainly the most successful spin-off ever, it makes the list because of its own iconic opening passage. However, we just couldn’t place it above the original, which you’ll find later on the list. Dun-Dun.

16. The Flash (2014-present)

The various intros to The Flash (Uploaded to YouTube by Phantom)

When Mark Waid took over as writer on The Flash comic book in the 1990s, he took the character’s long-time nickname (The Fastest Man Alive) and ingrained it into the narration that opened each issue: “My name is Wally West, and I’m the fastest man alive.” While the 2014 CW series opted to go with original Flash Barry Allen as its lead, it kept the spirit of Waid’s narrations. Series star Grant Gustin reads the openings in character, which adjust for each season and the arc of that year’s plot. We also use this entry to give a special nod to the Flash’s fellow CW crimefighters, Arrow, Supergirl, and The Legends of Tomorrow, all of whom use a variation of this device.

15. Tales from the Darkside (1983-1988)

The intro and ending to Tales from the Darkside (Uploaded to YouTube by TheSpace163)

Created by Night of the Living Dead director George Romero, Tales from the Darkside was a horror anthology series. Among the many legendary writers who contributed scripts or allowed their work to be adapted were Stephen King, Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, and John Cheever. Romero wrote the opening and closing narrations himself; the lines were performed by Paul Sparer, best known for his work in soap operas like Another World. “Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.”

14. Farscape (1999-2004)

The four intros to Farscape (Uploaded to YouTube by Farscape)

An Australian-American production that combined the forces of The Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment, Farscape remains one of the most off-beat science fiction series ever made. Action-packed, frequently hilarious, and put together with a mixture of CGI and Henson creature creations, Farscape tells the tale of John Crichton (Ben Browder), an astronaut who ends up on the other side of the universe and on the run from a fascist army with his collection of alien companions. The intros quickly explain the plot and premise via Browder’s narration, and were updated each season to reflect ongoing changes to the plot. Most notable? Season four’s “Look upward, and share the wonders that I’ve seen,” a grand tease for Crichton’s return to Earth.

13. Babylon 5 (1993-1998)

The five intros for Babylon 5 (Uploaded to YouTube by High Lord Baron)

Sci-fi classic Babylon 5 might be the ultimate expression of the changing introductory voice-over. In each of the first three seasons, a different actor from the show did the narration, with the dialogue changing to reflect the evolution of the story. The most telling change from the first two seasons to the third was the switch from “Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace” to “Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. In the year of The Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope for victory.” Season four included the majority of cast delivering alternating lines of narration, while the final season altered the intro into a collage of dialogue from across the series, ending with a game-changing moment from the previous season finale.

12. The A-Team (1983-1987)

The intro to The A-Team (Uploaded to YouTube by TalkerOne)

A perfect marriage of narration and theme song, the intro to The A-Team captures the story with precision (“In 1972, etc.”) before launching the music with a fusillade of bullets and a literal cannon blast (from the TV-movie pilot). Veteran composers Mike Post and Pete Carpenter composed the main theme, which puts nearly everyone immediately in mind of the flipping jeep.

11. The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982)

The opening of The Incredible Hulk (Uploaded to YouTube by philo1978)

The second live-action Marvel Comics-inspired series of the ’70s (the first being the short-lived Amazing Spider-Man), The Incredible Hulk turned into a hit that ran for five seasons and a handful of TV movies. The theme by Joe Harnell sounds very of its time, but it’s definitely emotive. The narration gives you everything you need to know about Dr. “David” Banner (though other reasons have been posited for the name switch, it was because the producers thought that the alliteration of “Bruce Banner” was too comic-booky; just imagine a comic book character’s name sounding like it came from a comic book), including Bill Bixby’s rather famous line about being angry. The narration was provided by Ted Cassidy (yes, Lurch from The Addams Family). Actual Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno has spent the last decade-plus providing the voice of The Hulk in the various films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the recent Avengers: Endgame (“So many stairs!”).

10. The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-1978)

The intro for The Six Million Dollar Man(Uploaded to YouTube by kelly86410)

“Better . . . stronger . . . faster.” “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him; we have the technology.” You know that the voiceover is a stone-cold classic when it produces multiple quotable lines. Richard Anderson, who plays Oscar Goldman, the boss of the titular bionic man, Steve Austin (Lee Majors) handles the monologue. The Six Million Dollar Man was a huge hit, spawning merchandise, a spin-off (The Bionic Woman), TV movies, and an entire generation of kids that made “chug-chug-chug-chug” noises when they bounced on a trampoline.

9. Charlie’s Angels (1976-1981)

The Season 1 intro for Charlie’s Angels (Uploaded to YouTube by Charlie’s Angels)

Jack Elliot and Allyn Ferguson’s jazzy ’70s main theme became a classic when paired with the smooth, knowing narration of John Forsythe (Charlie himself). The “Once upon a time” opening gently mocks the “very hazardous duties” that female police officers were subjected to, trying to strike an empowering note. However, the show was divisive on that point, with some critics dismissing it as “jiggle TV.” Social critic Camille Paglia recently wrote that the show was an “effervescent action-adventure showing smart, bold women working side by side in fruitful collaboration.” The show proved exceedingly popular for a time, even with cast replacements. After an abortive late ’80s reboot failed to materialize, the show has since seen life as two theatrical films, a revival TV series, spin-off comics, and a pending return to the big screen.

8. The Outer Limits (1963-1965; 1995-2002 revival)

The 1963 intro to The Outer Limits (Uploaded to YouTube by Florin MC)

The Outer Limits wastes no time getting to the creepy. As the picture begins to fail, a voice tells us, “There is nothing wrong with your television set; do not attempt to adjust the picture.” Most often compared to its fellow anthology, The Twilight Zone, this series hewed more closely to science-fiction, whereas Zone cast a wider net. While the original series only ran for two seasons, the words of the intro have stuck around in popular culture ever since, meriting a Top Ten spot on the list.

7. Dragnet (1949-1957 on radio; 1951-1959; 1967-1970 revival)

The 1954 intro to Dragnet (Uploaded to YouTube by Mill Creek Entertainment)

Jack Webb played Detective Joe Friday across three mediums off-and-on for 21 years. He was the lead in the radio drama, the first TV series (and its spin-off film), and the series revival. From the radio through the second TV show, two ongoing narration pieces were used. The first was an announcer, letting you know that the story you are about to see is true (although the names have been changed to protect the innocent). The second element is Friday himself, setting the L.A. scene and introducing himself. The no-nonsense set-up is the ancestor of our next entry.

6. Law & Order (1990-2010; on cable somewhere at this precise moment)

The spoken-word introduction to Law & Order (Uploaded to YouTube by Florin MC)

A franchise engine of the highest order (every pun intended), Dick Wolf’s Law & Order ran for 20 years while producing six direct spin-offs (with L&O in the name), indirect spin-offs like Conviction (the 2006 series), absorbing characters from other shows (Richard Belzer’s Detective Munch from Homicide: Life on the Streets), and sharing a fictional universe and ongoing character crossovers with programs like New York Undercover and the family of Chicago shows (Fire, P.D., Med, etc.). The iconic introduction, echoed on most of the shows that bear the Law & Order name (including SVU from earlier in the list), lets you know that the show will follow both the police (Law) and the prosecutors (Order). Dun Dun forever.

5. The Odd Couple (1970-1975)

The intro to The Odd Couple (Uploaded to YouTube by retrorebirth)

Certainly one of the greatest television comedy series, The Odd Couple was based on the film that was based on Neil Simon’s stage play. Starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, the series had the distinction of doing so well in summer reruns that its second-run performance became the deciding factor each time it was awarded a new season. At the close of its run, the show was given a genuine finale episode, wherein Randall’s Felix re-marries Gloria and moves out. Multiple remakes of The Odd Couple exist on stage and screen, including a gender-flipped play, a remake with an African-American cast, and, this is true, an animated take with dog and cat roommates (The Oddball Couple, which ran on ABC in 1975).

4. The Lone Ranger (1949-1957)

The intro to The Lone Ranger (Uploaded to YouTube by TeeVees Greatest)

Cue The William Tell Overture.

Narrator: The Lone Ranger!

Lone Ranger: Hi Yo Silver!

Narrator: A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty, ‘Hi Yo Silver!’ The Lone Ranger!

Lone Ranger: Hi Yo Silver, away!

Narrator: With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!

And scene.  Do you really need anything else?

3. The Adventures of Superman (1940-1951 radio; 1952-1958 TV)

The intro for The Adventures of Superman (Uploaded to YouTube by MissingPieces4U)

Though the opening narration may have been imported in large part from the radio, they remain some of the most famous words in the history of popular culture. It’s all there . . . “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s . . . Superman!” You get that he’s a “strange visitor from another planet.” You learn that he’s “faster than a speeding bullet . . . more powerful than a locomotive . . .” Basically every word of this is classic Americana. It’s like the super-hero Pledge of Allegiance. There is zero chance that you haven’t heard some part of this in the course of your everyday life.

2. Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

The intro to Star Trek: The Original Series (Uploaded to YouTube by dinadangdong)

A perfect marriage of text, image, and music, the opening narration of Star Trek gives you everything you need to understand the show and a dose of otherworldly tunes to go with it. Alexander Courage composed the theme, and the immortal words are delivered by Captain James T. Kirk himself, William Shatner. It’s been repeated in films, covered by Patrick Stewart for the first live-action spin-off (Star Trek: The Next Generation), and completely assimilated by popular culture. Or did it assimilate us? Only the Borg know for sure.

AND . . . the Greatest TV Spoken-Word Intro belongs to . . .

1. The Twilight Zone (1959-1964; revivals from 1985-1989, 2002-2003, and 2019-present)

The intros to The Twilight Zone from 1959 to 2003 (Uploaded to YouTube by Tardis & Beyond)

Witness if you will, a TV series with a basic premise so powerful it’s spawned a legion of imitators and has been rebooted itself three additional times. Submitted for your approval, a show so gripping that people who saw individual episodes as children still remember the endings decades later. Amazingly, though the lines of the intro were tweaked across seasons, every iteration remains incredibly memorable. Part of that was the delivery of the show’s creator and host, Rod Serling, and part of it was Serling’s own talent for finding that cold space in your mind and squeezing. Not every episode was scary, and not every episode had a twist, but the intro let you know that you had to be ready for anything. It’s timeless, it’s iconic, and it’s our Number One.

 

Read Part One of our look at the Greatest TV Themes here.

Featured image: Pictorial Press Ltd / Almy Stock Photo.

Cartoons: Amusing Musicians

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30 Years Ago: Soundgarden Lit the Fuse for the Seattle Explosion

It’s been called “The Seattle Sound.” It’s also been called, much to the disdain of the musicians that hail from the Jet City, “grunge.” Inspired in varying fractions by the punk stylings of bands like Black Flag, the doomy riffing of metal acts like Black Sabbath, and the indie sensibilities of groups like The Pixies, the sounds that brewed in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 1980s become one of the defining tones of the 1990s. A kind of conventional wisdom has gelled around the notion that Nirvana was the band the broke the doors open in 1991; however, the first band from that scene to make the move to a major label is also one that found enormous success, only to later lose their voice. That band was Soundgarden.

In all fairness, Seattle produced plenty of well-known musical acts in the decades prior to the flying of the flannel flag. The vocal stylings of The Fleetwoods and the surf rock of The Ventures emerged from the Seattle-Tacoma area in the 1950s. Jimi Hendrix made his mark after traveling to England to break through. Progressive metal band Queensryche formed in 1980 before becoming hitmakers a decade later. But the undisputed rock royalty that would have direct ties to the later “grunge” scene were Ann and Nancy Wilson, the sisters at the center of the massively successful (and still touring) Heart. Founded in Washington state before finding success in Canada and dropping their debut in 1975, Heart inspired a number of younger musicians with their musical prowess and work ethic, eventually becoming “big sister” and mentor figures to a number of stars-in-the-making.

The Seattle scene that became mythologized by MTV started forming in the ’80s. Brothers Andrew and Kevin Wood put together Malfunkshun, a rock band noted for their humor and Andrew’s glam vocals and magnetic stage presence. The Melvins, led by singer-guitarist Buzz Osborne and second drummer Dale Crover, formed in Montesano in 1983; the band applied the heaviness of Black Flag to the varied tempos of their music. A year later, Green River debuted, boasting a line-up that included future members of Mudhoney and Pearl Jam.

It was in this environment of furious musical activity that Soundgarden formed. The 1984 line-up featuring Kim Thayil on guitar, Hiro Yamamoto on bass, and Chris Cornell on . . . drums? It may seem hard to believe now, but one of the most charismatic vocalists of all time started off behind the kit; he was the singer then too, of course, but he wouldn’t emerge from behind the drums full-time for another year. The nascent band, along with Green River, was among the early signees to local label Sub Pop.

Soundgarden began to grow their fanbase from Screaming Life and the follow-up EP, Fopp. Though primed for a swing at the major labels, Soundgarden opted to sign with California indie SST Records, the home of Black Flag. The resulting album, 1988’s Ultramega OK, earned positive attention, garnered MTV airplay for the video “Flower,” and enabled the band to tour the U.S. and Europe. The album would eventually be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Metal Performance category.

Flower by Soundgarden (Uploaded to YouTube by Sup Pop

After the success of OK, the band made the difficult decision to sign with a major label. When A&M took them on, some of the original fans took umbrage to their hometown heroes leaving the indies behind. Nevertheless, the band found itself on a steadily upward trajectory. When their major label debut, Louder Than Love, dropped in September of 1989, they found themselves with an album in Billboard’s Top 200. Tours with Voidod and Guns ‘N’ Roses followed.

Soundgarden’s emergence threw a spotlight on the scene that Sub Pop had helped cultivate. Bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney had gained studio experience while honing their craft.

1990 and 1991 brought enormous upheaval to music. After several years of hair-metal dominance, alternative stalwarts like R.E.M. and Jane’s Addiciton and significant hip-hop artists like Ice Cube began to get more attention. In March of 1991, the introduction of the Nielsen SoundScan tracking system dramatically altered the make-up of the charts; previously, Billboard chart placement turned on phone calls and reports from stores, which frequently included mistakes and outright fabrications. The new system tracked the cold hard data of sales alone, and that shook up the traditional perception of what genres were popular. At the same time, MTV’s proliferating number of shows that focused deeply on genres, like Headbanger’s Ball (metal), Yo MTV Raps! (hip-hop), and 120 Minutes (alternative), allowed a greater number of acts to be seen.

In the midst of this, a serendipitous wrinkle arrived on the scene via Hollywood. Cameron Crowe had written for Rolling Stone as a teenager and had transitioned to the successful screenwriter of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the writer/director of Say Anything. Along the way, he married Nancy Wilson of Heart. Crowe set his new film, Singles, against the backdrop of the city’s vibrant music scene, inspired in part by the community he witnessed in the wake of Malfunkshun singer Andrew Wood’s death via overdose in March of 1990. Filming commenced in March of 1991. The movie featured a number of musicians from the city in visible roles, notably Ament, Gossard, and Eddie Vedder as the other members of Matt Dillon’s band, Citizen Dick. Cornell wrote some tunes to go along with some fictional song titles, and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains both appear performing in the film. The studio, however, wasn’t quite sure how to market it, so it wound up sitting on the sidelines for months. While the film waited, the music didn’t.

In the fall of 1991, Nirvana released the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and there was an explosion of interest in Seattle. As it happened, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam all either had albums out or ready to go. Nirvana’s Nevermind raised all boats. Facelift, the debut disc by Alice in Chains, had been released in 1990 and grown steadily, but it surged again with the Seattle association. Nevermind, Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, and Pearl Jam’s Ten all arrived within one four-week period. The Alice in Chains and Soundgarden releases would sell more than two million copies each, while Ten and Nevermind went on to sell a stunning 13 and 30 million worldwide, respectively.

The Seattle bands hadn’t opened a door for alternative rock; they’d torn down a wall. Coupled with the new touring vehicles like the Lollapalooza tour and steady airplay on MTV, alternative rock exploded. Veterans like the Red Hot Chili Peppers would take Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Chicago’s Smashing Pumpkins out as opening acts while a signing frenzy began as major labels began to look for the “next Seattle” or the “next Nirvana.” In the summer of 1992, the soundtrack to Singles was released three months before the film; though the music had been selected and included long before the breakthrough occurred, the disc’s inclusion of Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Smashing Pumpkins, and more powered it to double-platinum status.

For the next few years, the bands enjoyed huge success. Soundgarden’s Superunknown sold more than twice as many albums as Badmotorfinger, as did Alice in Chains’ Facelift follow-up, Dirt. The two bands and Pearl Jam would appear on the Lollapalooza main stage. Nirvana found themselves anointed as a kind of post-punk Beatles; the media and many fans viewed them as the figureheads of the scene. Unfortunately, Nirvana’s singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain succumbed to his combination of depression and addiction, and took his own life in April of 1994. Cobain’s death took the winds out of the sails of the alternative explosion. Later wave bands like Bush and Weezer had big successes, but the genre had lost its most visible frontperson.

Today, it’s hard to look back at the scene without melancholy. Original Alice in Chains vocalist Layne Staley died from an overdose in 2002, and Cornell would take his own life in 2017. The raw power and creativity of the music was driven in part by the real issues afflicting the musicians themselves; that honesty was an integral component of why they connected with audiences.  While some may regard the Seattle explosion as a phase or a snapshot in time, the pervasive nature of music and video streaming services allows new generations of fans to discover these bands and their songs on a continually recurring basis. Even as the musicians leave us, their songs, more powerful than a fad or passing interest, will continue to endure.

Featured image: Brian Patterson Photos / Shutterstock.com.

The Stooges Set the Stage for Punk 50 Years Ago

No matter how you cut it, 1969 will always be one of the most significant years in music: Woodstock. Altamont. The Beatles play in public for the last time. The Who record Tommy. Johnny Cash plays San Quentin. Diana Ross and The Supremes split. It was year of wall-to-wall classic albums, from Led Zeppelin, Yellow Submarine, and Neil Young appearing in January to Let It Bleed by The Stones and the Jackson 5’s debut in December.

Tucked in among those timeless records was another release that would have a seismic impact, its influence growing as time went on. Joining The Sonics, Velvet Underground, and MC5 as a forerunner of punk, The Stooges unleashed their self-titled debut 50 years ago – yes, 50 years ago — this week, completing a foundation for punk rock that would be built upon by the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Blondie, and Television.

The Stooges formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, near their Detroit contemporaries MC5, and they indulged in a loud and rude brand of garage rock that’s since been dubbed proto-punk. The core of the band was brothers Ron and Scott Asheton on guitar and drums, respectively, Dave Alexander on bass, and Jim Osterberg on vocals. Osterberg would be credited as Iggy Stooge on the record, but the world would soon come to know him as Iggy Pop.

The Stooges (Uploaded to YouTube by RHINO)

The Stooges soon built a reputation for intense live performances. The extremely limber and often shirtless Pop twisted his body to the music, frequently smearing himself with peanut butter and other foods, leaping off the stage, crashing into equipment, and even cutting himself. The sound of the band ran from bluesy grooves to pummeling rock, sometimes within the same song. Tunes like “I Wanna Be Your Dog” leaned heavily on three distorted guitar chords while incorporating sounds like sleigh bells and a one-note piano. When Danny Fields from Elektra Records went to scout the MC5, he saw The Stooges, too; he signed both bands.

While the intensity of the band powered their sound, it was the totally bonkers stage presence of Pop that helped cement them as iconic. Even before the first album dropped, tales of their shows were legend. Henry Rollins, former lead singer of hardcore punk legends Black Flag and The Rollins Band, grew up idolizing Pop. In a hilarious pair of videos, he recounts playing with Pop on multiple occasions throughout the ‘90s; he regards “Jim Osterberg” and “Iggy Pop” as almost two separate beings, saying, “Jim is cool; Iggy is like this terrifying monster of rock and roll.” Rollins also recalled on a VH1 special that Pop was “to my knowledge, the first guy to go off the stage into the crowd.” Alice Cooper, upon seeing Pop for the first time recalled, “I went, who is this guy? I thought I was the freakiest guy out there.”

Brian Eno said (possibly apocryphally), that not that many people bought 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico, but everyone that did started a band. In the case of The Stooges, they got John Cale from The Velvets to actually produce their first record. That Stooges sound was uniquely primitive and primal, and Cale managed to get that feel on the record.

As was the case with that first Velvet Underground album, The Stooges didn’t set the world on fire. Sales were modest and reviews weren’t glowing, but were frequently tinged with grudging respect. Writing for Rolling Stone at the time, Edmund O. Ward gave this classic summation: “Their music is loud, boring, tasteless, unimaginative and childish. I kind of like it.” The follow-up album, 1970’s Fun House, worked much the same way. The band earned a significant fan in David Bowie; Bowie, along with Pop, would produce the third album, 1973’s Raw Power, which featured the addition of guitarist James Williamson to the line-up.

Though the records sold poorly, they found an audience among nascent musicians, many of whom would coalesce around the New York City punk scene in the years that followed. Bands like The Ramones, Blondie, and Television were influenced by The Stooges, and Pop befriended many in that New York scene. The Stooges became a forerunner of the New York Dolls and those aforementioned acts that emerged, alongside Talking Heads and others, as the cornerstone of American punk rock. In the documentary Punk Attitude, Thurston Moore of the band Sonic Youth said that Pop never even realized that The Stooges had sold any records until he moved to New York and met bands like The Ramones that he had influenced, “which was shocking for him.”

The Stooges are inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Uploaded to YouTube by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame)

Over the years, The Stooges served as an influence to musicians across a multitude of genres, notably punk and metal. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana called Raw Power his favorite album. Reunions occurred here and there with musicians moving in and out of the band, and live albums being released, but the band didn’t go back into the studio together again until 2007’s The Weirdness. By that point, The Stooges had been playing and touring together consistently again since 2003. In 2010, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Stooges disbanded for good in 2016 following the deaths of the Asheton brothers and Mackay; Williamson and Pop felt that should be the end. That same year, Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about the group, Gimme Danger, was released.

The Stooges were never the biggest band, but they proved that you didn’t have to be. They played hard, lived rough, and became major influences on multiple generations of players. They got to see their music drive other bands, and then they came back to play alongside them for years. When Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day inducted the band into the Rock Hall, he read a list of roughly 100 bands that counted The Stooges as an influence while admitting that there were legions more.  Iggy sang “Raw power got a magic touch,” and he was absolutely right.

Featured image: Shutterstock.com

The Week of Peak Disco

Can you pinpoint the exact moment that a musical movement peaks? It’s easy to define music to nonspecific eras: you have the British Invasion, the early 1990s Alternative Explosion, and so on. However, the unassailable peak of disco happened the week of July 21, 1979, when the top six songs in the U.S. (and seven in the Top Ten) were classified as disco tunes. Over the following few weeks, every trace of the style would vanish from the charts. This is the story of a genre’s rise, greatest moment of triumph, and fall.

An exact date for the creation of disco is impossible to pin down, but we can trace its development from earlier decades to the 1970s. One significant step in the genre’s development was the ongoing slate of private parties hosted by New York DJ David Mancuso at his home starting in 1970. Mancuso’s approach was copied by others; as his own “The Loft” became the epicenter of a new dance culture, it spread into other private parties and clubs. The Loft was notable for the blended audiences that it attracted; no barriers were placed on ethnicity or sexuality, and the music had to be danceable and generally celebratory.

The sound of disco came from a variety of places. Motown R&B played a part, as did the soul stylings of groups from cities like Philadelphia, like The O’Jays and The Stylistics. Producers like Tom Moulton pushed the record format when it came to dance, extending single lengths by using 12” vinyl and innovating the remix approach that added or enhanced elements of songs. The psychedelic soul sound associated with later Temptations records and the funk of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic added other ingredients to the brew.

The O’Jays perform “Love Train” (Uploaded to YouTube by the O’Jays)

From a cultural standpoint, the shift from the 1960s to the 1970s opened the door for new things. As the counterculture movement died off and Vietnam continued, economic uncertainty plagued the country. The ongoing social turmoil became a crucible for new and reinvented forms of music, including the evolution of heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and disco. In the book Beautiful Things in Popular Culture, Simon Frith said, “The driving force of the New York underground dance scene in which disco was forged was not simply that city’s complex ethnic and sexual culture, but also a 1960s notion of community, pleasure and generosity that can only be described as hippie. The best disco music contained within it a remarkably powerful sense of collective euphoria.” Soon dance records that broke in the clubs found success on the radio and in record stores, adding some early fuel to the movement.

“Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation (Uploaded to YouTube by The Hues Corporation / RCA Victor)

On the charts, a number of songs that could arguably be classified as disco emerged as hits in the very early 1970s. Among these were “Love Train” by The O’Jays (1972) and “Love’s Theme” by Barry White’s The Love Unlimited Orchestra (1974). When “Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation hit #1 in May of 1974, many declared it to be the first disco #1, though others held up “Love’s Theme” (which topped the charts in February) as the first. Regardless of which was “first,” it was evident that the style had a place on the charts and was primed to grow. Carl Douglas’s “Kung-Fu Fighting” and George McRae’s “Rock Your Baby” also hit #1, with “Rock” having the added distinction of being the first disco #1 in the U.K. The success of disco rolled into 1975, with landmark tracks like Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” and the commercial breakthroughs of Donna Summer and KC and The Sunshine Band.

“Night Fever” by The Bee Gees (Uploaded to YouTube by beegees)

The popular acceptance of the form took it into more mainstream clubs and into film and television. A 1976 New York magazine article inspired the disco-driven 1977 film Saturday Night Fever. The already popular Bee Gees had turned their attention to more dance-oriented sounds by 1975, and the trio had created hits like “Jive Talkin’” and “You Should Be Dancing” (1976). The Bee Gees agreed to craft songs for the film; those tunes, as well as songs they wrote for others and contributions from different acts, would form one of the best-selling soundtracks in history. The success of the Oscar-nominated movie and the soundtrack (over 16 million albums sold) remarkably elevated the profile of the genre to even greater heights.

 

Between 1977 and 1980, roughly 22 songs that fit into the disco genre hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. These included obvious numbers like “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor and “Dancing Queen” by Abba, as well as critically acclaimed pieces “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston (a cover of a Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes song, Houston’s version won a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in 1977).

“Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston (Uploaded to YouTube by Thelma Houston)

Despite the popularity of the form, there were definitely dissenters. One of them was Steve Dahl, a rock DJ who lost his job at Chicago’s WDAI when the station switched from a rock format to disco. Dahl was hired by WLUP and worked hard to stir anti-disco backlash. After promoting a few events, Dahl participated in a promotion at Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox. Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, encouraged fans to bring disco records to the double-header between the Sox and Tigers where the discs would be blown-up in center field. The event got out of hand early when fans that couldn’t get into the sold-out affair broke into the stadium anyway. Beer, firecrackers, and albums rained on the field throughout the first game. After the crate of records was detonated between contests, thousands of fans rushed the field. Police were called, and eventually the White Sox had to forfeit the game (it’s the last American League behavior-forfeit on record). While many, like Dahl, dismissed the circumstances of the event as harmless fun gone out of hand, others like Rolling Stone writer Dave Marsh expressed that a lot of the hostility toward disco included bigotry toward black, Latino, and gay artists and fans.

“Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer (Uploaded to YouTube by Donna Summer Universal Music Group

Despite the anti-disco sentiment, a few days after the Comiskey Park incident, the Billboard Charts reflected the week of peak disco. Seven of the Top Ten were disco tracks, including: “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer (#1); “Ring My Bell” by Anita Ward (#2); “Hot Stuff” by Summer (#3); “Good Times” by Chic (#4); “Makin’ It” by David Naughton (#5); “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind, & Fire with The Emotions (#6); and “Shine A Little Love” by Electric Light Orchestra (#8). ELO, like Blondie, weren’t a traditional disco band, but did release songs that employed the sound. Despite this high, disco was about to hit its inglorious low.

“My Sharona” by The Knack (Uploaded to YouTube by The Knack / Universal Music Group)

On August 25, “My Sharona” by The Knack began a six-week run at #1. Critics typically lump The Knack in with “new wave” rock acts that also included multi-genre stylists Blondie, Elvis Costello, and others. Disco would continue to dot the charts for a while, but the cultural backlash caused many artists to simply relabel themselves as “dance.”

When MTV kicked off in 1981, it effectively killed disco for good in two ways. The first is the unfortunate reality that that the network played very little in the way of black artists in its early days. The second is that the channel embraced bands that were already making videos or working overseas (where the “video clip” format was already popular), resulting in a massive push for predominantly white, new-wave-related bands and English bands. Everyone seems to know that the first video played on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles, but the next nine were from Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, The Who, Ph.D., Cliff Richard, The Pretenders, Todd Rundgren, REO Speedwagon, and Styx. Black artists wouldn’t break through on the channel until the massive success of Michael Jackson and Prince in the following two years forced the network to catch up.

 

Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” enjoys ongoing life in other media and sporting arenas. (Uploaded to YouTube by Gloria Gaynor / The Orchard Enterprises)

Today, disco culture is a staple of films and TV, as seen in everything from Boogie Nights to Pose to The Martian (Matt Damon’s character may have hated it, but Jessica Chastain’s loved it). The musical style has adapted and integrated into a variety of genres, including EDM and hip-hop, where sampled hooks are still regularly mined from disco classics. Package tours of disco artists continue to circulate. The influence is felt in a number of popular songs of the past few years, among which are Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” (which features Nile Rodgers of Chic), “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars, and “Can’t Feel My Face” by the Weeknd. Disco may never have a proper, world-dominating comeback, but it never truly went away. It’s fair to say that no matter how you try to kill it, it will survive.

 

3 Questions for David Crosby

David Crosby’s rise to fame was plagued by drug and alcohol use and a fiery temperament that burned a lot of bridges. A new documentary, David Crosby: Remember My Name, opening in theaters in July, takes us through his incredible triumphs and low, low points, from The Byrds to Crosby, Stills, and Nash and beyond. Now, after overcoming the addictions that nearly killed him, a liver transplant, and multiple heart surgeries, the 77-year-old is on the road again and happy. “It’s really strange to have the best part of your life near the end,” he says. “I’m glad [producer] Cameron Crowe gave me no place to hide in the film. We wanted to do an honest portrayal of a human being not a shine job.”

He believes music can change minds. At every show, he performs “What Are Their Names,” which includes the following lyrics:

I wonder who they are
The men who really run this land
And I wonder why they run it
With such a thoughtless hand

What are their names
And on what streets do they live
I’d like to ride right over
This afternoon and give
Them a piece of my mind
About peace for mankind
Peace is not an awful lot to ask

Jeanne Wolf: People call you a survivor. I like to think of you as an unstoppable artist-adventurer.

David Crosby: I’m not exactly unstoppable, but the truth is, I think I must be the luckiest guy I know. I was supposed to be dead 20 years ago, and here I am just having a blast. I’ve done four records in four years and I’m halfway through a fifth one. I didn’t do it to prove anything. I just did it because I had the songs and it was fun. I think it has to do with your attitude about life. If your whole concern is your physical exterior, getting old is kind of hard. If you’re concerned with your heart, your mind, and your soul, it is pretty much fun.

When I’m on stage, I’m the happiest guy in the world. I never sing anything exactly the same. I’m always winging it. It’s like having your own rocket ship. You can feel this total freedom and the joy of the connection that you have with the other musicians. This magic that you’re making together is freakin’ wonderful.

Then you eat a piece of pizza and try to sleep on a bus.

Looking back, we went through some tough times inside Crosby, Stills, and Nash. We were all competing with each other. The result was some really good music, but there was never the kind of joy making it that collaborative effort has. If you’re working with somebody for the same aim, it’s a joy, but not if you’re going, “I’m better than you are.”

Now my son, James Raymond, produces my records and plays with me in all my gigs. He’s the keyboard player and my best writing partner. So it’s really pretty wonderful. His mom put him up for adoption when he was born. I knew he existed but I didn’t know how to find him. Then when he was 30 he found me. He got ahold of me and he was so nice. You know those meet-ups usually go badly, but he gave me a clean slate, gave me a chance to earn my way into his life.

JW: People are still curious about your years of self-destruction and addiction. Do you get weary of talking about it?

DC: I learned to be able to tell my story because it can help other people who are trying to deal with addiction. You start in the meetings. Then, people come to you and say, “My brother or my son or my wife or my lover is in such deep trouble — what can I do?” I can usually help, but the truth is, you can only do it yourself, even if people are sympathetic and supportive. Sometimes they lock you up and that’s the only way you get straight. You have no choice if you’re in prison. That’s what finally happened to me. But when you get out, good luck if you haven’t figured things out for yourself.

I do think that the hard things that you go through shape you and, in many cases, make you better. I don’t know anybody I like that isn’t covered with scars. I think that after you’ve gone through something really tough, then when you see somebody else going through something tough, you have compassion.

JW: Your songs have been anthems for change. Can lyrics really make a difference?

DC: Music is a really wonderful thing for transmitting ideas, and ideas are the most powerful stuff on the planet. People like me come from the troubadours in the Middle Ages in Europe carrying the news from town to town. Right? And the town criers. “It’s twelve o’clock and all is well!” or “It’s twelve o’clock and you elected that guy to be president!” Most of our job is to take you on emotional journeys and make you boogie. But if your government starts shooting down your children when they’re at college protesting legally and unarmed, as they did at Kent State, you have to sing about it. And we did. That’s the witness part. Short of that, I think you have to be really careful about how you do it because I don’t like the people who just adopt the cause of the week.

Most of my songs come to me at night at home. We always have dinner together as a family, and then I go to build a fire and I smoke some pot. I take a guitar off the wall and I play and I see where it goes. Very often, I will find a new piece of music. The other way that happens is, I get a flash of some words that I like. That’s the thing I learned from Joni Mitchell, who told me, “Write everything down, otherwise it didn’t happen.”

This article is featured in the July/August 2019 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.

Feature image: Courtesy David Crosby: Remember My Name

The Most Extravagant Showman of the Midwest

Wladziu Valentino Liberace had no shortage of costly possessions: sparkling Rolls Royces, Belle Époque-era pianos, marble-columned bathrooms. But when Oprah Winfrey interviewed the grand pianist in 1986, he spoke candidly: “The most important and valuable thing in one’s life is your health, and if you have that you’re a rich person.” Six weeks later, Liberace passed away. Today, he would be 100 years old.

As a performer, Liberace made a living by pushing the boundaries of his own extravagance. Crowd-pleasing renditions of classical, ragtime, and pop favorites filled his concerts, but his persona — aloof, campy, and self-deprecating — shined through his rhinestone capes and stole the show. In the 1950s, he became one of the most popular personalities on television in his syndicated The Liberace Show wearing tuxedoes and speaking amiably into the camera. By the ’70s, he was donning 200-pound capes made of chinchilla and spouting lines like, “Sometimes people will ask me how it feels to be famous. I usually tell them it beats obscurity all to hell!”

This magazine covered “Mr. Showmanship” in 1978 in a profile called “All That Glitters.” Liberace’s curious choice to play classics alongside pop and nostalgia tunes all started one night at a concert in his home state of Wisconsin: “At the end of a performance in LaCrosse, he asked his audience for requests. Someone yelled out for the ‘Three Little Fishies.’ With a dignified flip of his coattails, Liberace sat down and rendered a string of ‘Little Fishies’ done in the style of the great masters.” His ability to weave high and low brow performance proved to be a hit, especially in the Midwest. Over the years, Liberace turned up the flamboyance, his diamond- and pearl-studded costumes reflecting his real-life fixation with luxury.

“The Franz Liszt of Las Vegas” insisted he “laughed all the way to the bank!” when he wasn’t received well — which was often. Critics, journalists, and comedians got creative poking at the pianist and his unconventional displays of music and manhood. Writing in The New Republic in 1984, Edward Rothstein attempted to analyze Liberace’s popularity: “The music, too, is just an image: no ‘real’ Beethoven or Liszt or Chopin is played. What is heard instead is a stylized reference to this music … Liberace’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ is meant to invoke the great and distant Beethoven, but in a way that defers to the sentimental meanings that have accumulated around classical music for the popular listener.”

Claims that Liberace wasn’t “the marrying type” abounded, both in late night jokes and newspaper stories. What seemed obvious to so many — that he was gay — was vehemently denied by the performer. His cute, eccentric persona completed a fantasy for his dedicated fanbase of maternal Midwesterners, and he could scarcely afford to lose that with a big scandal.

When Liberace appeared on Oprah’s show, it was his last interview. It was Christmastime, his favorite season, when he could lavish gifts on his friends and throw exorbitant parties. Unbeknownst to her audience or any viewers, he had been infected with the HIV virus. She asked him what he would like people to know about him, and he said, “People don’t know me as a private person. They don’t know what makes me tick when I’m not onstage, and I love being a human being.”

 

Featured Image: Shutterstock

The Deadpan Dame of Old Hollywood

When the opening night of Meet the People, a musical comedy revue in a Los Angeles playhouse, came in 1939, Virginia O’Brien was scared stiff. The 17-year-old performer had stage fright, and her solo didn’t go as planned. Instead of delivering the bombastic, Ethel Merman-inspired number she had practiced, O’Brien found herself dancing with stiff movements and singing with a frozen stare. Reduced to tears in the wings after her debut that left the audience in laughter, the actress had no idea that her nervous energy would afford her the attention of Louis B. Mayer, of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and jumpstart her career as a comedic singer in some of the greatest movie musicals of the era.

“Say That We’re Sweethearts Again” from Meet the People (1944) (Uploaded to YouTube by FlashHarry621)

Within two weeks of that opening night, O’Brien signed a seven-year contract with MGM, and, a few weeks after that, she was on her way to make her Broadway debut in Keep Off the Grass. Throughout the ’40s, O’Brien was featured in the titanic studio’s glossy and expensive musicals alongside stars like Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, and Red Skelton. The actress’s shtick was unique, though, and especially unusual in Hollywood musicals. Rather than performing with a hyper display of facial expressions and gestures, O’Brien delivered most of her numbers looking directly into the camera with a deadpan stare, and her vocals bounced and stalled unexpectedly. As a comic tour de force with a borderline-rock ’n’ roll style, “Miss Deadpan Frozen Face” was a one-of-a-kind Hollywood girl ahead of her time.

“Lullaby” from the Marx brothers’ The Big Store (1941)(Uploaded to YouTube by clickelliott)

Watching O’Brien’s scenes from films like Panama Hattie, Du Barry Was a Lady, and Ziegfeld Follies is like viewing a number stitched into a classic musical with the comic timing of a later era. The gag was always self-aware: in Panama Hattie, Red Skelton introduces O’Brien’s character as “a face that was set for seven, but it didn’t go off!” and “it looks like Leon Henderson’s freezing everything nowadays!” In turn, she stares through him like she doesn’t get the joke.

Sometimes — as in Meet the People and Ship Ahoy — O’Brien’s cold comic presence is combined with dark pathos as she sings lines like “Our love is great. No love can match it. Darling, please put down that hatchet.” and “Poor you. I’m sorry you’re not me. For you will never know what lovin’ you can be.” Her refrains of unrequited love given with a vacant look brought complex comedy to big box musicals. If Lucille Ball filled the silver screen with vivacity and slapstick, O’Brien countered that with a more focused, obscure energy. O’Brien’s characters often came across as intimidating and mysterious, and her singing was full of technical surprises. Unfortunately, her potential as a movie star was cut short.

“Did I Get Stinkin’ at the Savoy” from Panama Hattie (1942)(Uploaded to YouTube by Warner Archive)

The frozen-faced actress was dropped from MGM at the end of her contract in spite of her numerous well-received performances and first-rate work ethic. As she said in a 1992 interview, O’Brien was pregnant while filming The Harvey Girls, and Judy Garland “wasn’t showing up at work.” As O’Brien got bigger, and filming was delayed, her role in the western romp was scaled back and her songs assigned to other actresses. The supporting singer met a similar fate in Till the Clouds Roll By, another huge MGM musical in which she only took part in a few numbers.

“In a Little Spanish Town” from Thousands Cheer (1943)(Uploaded to YouTube by Classics)

O’Brien was having her hair done in a beauty parlor when she read in the newspaper that her contract hadn’t been renewed. Although dejected, she didn’t hold any grudges about being cut from the studio. She treasured the time she spent with MGM, saying, in 1984, “MGM was a wonderful place to be. Everything you needed, they had it right there for you. They treated you like kings and queens. I liked Louis B. Mayer. He was a friend of my dad’s.” She expanded her family and took her routine on the road, performing her own shows for decades. Though it was hard work, she said she regained her passion for having a live audience. She appeared on Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, and Merv Griffin, and in the ’80s she put on a retrospective tour of all of her MGM songs and released an album. O’Brien’s film career may have been cut short by the ruthless practices of the old studios, but the intriguing allure of her niche performance style has aged well.

“Salome” from Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)(Uploaded to YouTube by wetcircuit)

 

Featured Image: Wikimedia Commons

25 Years Ago: The Secret Beatles Reunion

Almost as soon as The Beatles officially dissolved in 1970, the world started asking for a reunion. Despite the efforts of promoters, friends, and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, the four members of the band never reconvened prior to John Lennon’s death in 1980. However, the four members would manage to record together again 25 years after their final, rooftop concert, and 15 years after Lennon’s passing. Two new Beatles songs featuring all four members came together in 1994 thanks to one big project and the contributions of Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.

In 1994, a multimedia effort to construct a documentary and album project was already underway. The Beatles Anthology, which would eventually consist of a television series (six aired episodes, but two additional on video), three double-CDs of music, and a book, had the participation of the three surviving Beatles (Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr) and their fabled producer, George Martin. The parties involved hatched a plan to record new “incidental” music for the documentary, but then realized that they might want to make actual new songs.

The key to this seemingly impossible task was Yoko Ono. McCartney asked if there were any unreleased Lennon recordings, and Ono sent cassettes of four songs. Harrison and Neil Aspinall (the band’s one-time road manager) asked if the other three might be allowed to complete any of the songs on the demos. When McCartney went to New York to induct Lennon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in January of 1994, he met with Ono and her and John’s son, Sean, to pick up the actual demo tapes.

From there, the rest of the band went to work. Martin opted out of recording the “new” tracks due to his hearing difficulties, although he would work on the TV programs. To serve as producer, the group drafted their friend Jeff Lynne; Lynne was the leader of Electric Light Orchestra and had worked with Harrison on both the latter’s Cloud 9 album and the Traveling Wilburys projects. Of the songs on the tapes, the group selected “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” to complete.

“Free as a Bird” by The Beatles; video directed by Joe Pytka.

The original tape of “Free as a Bird” presented some challenges; Lennon’s vocals and piano had been recorded on a single track. Typically, separate parts are recorded on different tracks to facilitate editing. Nevertheless, Lynne made it work; Starr, McCartney, and Harrison played their usual instruments (drums, bass, and guitar, respectively) with extra vocals by McCartney and Harrison and so ukulele by Harrison. For “Real Love,” some studio wizardry was employed by Lynne to even out the timing of the song, which had an irregular rhythm; again, the group added traditional parts, as well as parts for harmonium and harpsichord.

“Real Love” by The Beatles; video directed by Geoff Wonfor.

Of course, this was all happening behind the scenes long before the rest of the world got to hear the results. It wouldn’t be until November of 1995, with the near-simultaneous release of the Anthology docuseries on TV and the first CD, that the public would hear “Free as a Bird” and see the companion video. The song entered the U.K. charts at #2, and it hit #6 in the U.S., cementing a top ten for the band in four separate decades (the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off re-release of “Twist and Shout” charted in the 1980s).

Paul surprises Ringo at his 70th birthday show.

The Anthology project was a massive success and marked the last time that “all” of The Beatles would work together. George Harrison would die of cancer in 2001. At this writing, McCartney and Starr still carry on very active musical careers, with the duo occasionally teaming up for special events (like Ringo’s birthday). While a full-on reunion tour and album was never meant to be, fans can still take comfort in the fact that they could work it out one last time.

Featured Image: The Beatles in an EMI trade ad from 1965. (Photo by EMI; Wikimedia Commons via Public Domain)

“Bwah-Wahdi-Dough” by Henry Anton Steig

Bronx-born Henry Anton Steig was a textbook Renaissance man. As a saxophonist, painter, cartoonist, writer, astronomer, and jeweler, the man of many talents was sewn into much of 20th-Century iconography without ever becoming a household name. His fiction appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and Collier’s, he worked with songwriter Johnny Mercer in Hollywood, and his Manhattan jewelry shop even played the background of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic subway grate scene in The Seven Year Itch. His story “Bwah-Wahdi-Dough” is a swinging New Year’s Eve affair with a complicated love triangle bursting with colorful city dialect.

Published on January 9, 1937

 

In the hallway of the apartment house, Harry Tack looked himself over carefully, brushed a bit of lint off the velvet collar of his form-fitting topcoat, and then rang the bell marked “Smith.” The door was opened by one who, he had decided, was a very cute number; not much over five feet tall — just about right for his own five-six — slimly and gracefully curved in a very special way, and with large dark eyes and amber-colored hair.

“Hello, Harry,” she said.

“Hi, Sue.” Harry followed her into the apartment.

Susan introduced him to her parents. They were in the kitchen, Mr. Smith reading, and Mrs. Smith knitting, and Harry was thankful that they remained there when Susan took him into the living room. He sat down in an easy chair, carefully putting some slack in his trousers first, and Susan sat opposite him on a couch.

“Must be nice having a night off from the trumpet,” she said.

“Oh, I never get tired of the piston,” Harry said. “I wouldn’t mind playin’ it every night ’na week, except when I got sumpm extra out of the ordinary on, like tanight.”

“Do you like clubbing better than steady work?” Susan asked, having acknowledged the compliment with a smile.

“Yeah, fra while, anyhow. Bill Devoe’s band’s got a pretty big rep, and Miller’s a good agent, so we’re kept on the go. It’s nice woik and we get it; fun playin’ to a different crowd every time. And with the Honeybunny hour twice a week and groovin’ plates for the Phonodisk Company, everybody’s happy far as dough’s concerned. How about you? Hodda you like clubbin’?”

“I’ve given up the idea of becoming an opera star,” Susan said regretfully, “so I have to like it. Trouble is, clubbing’s not very dependable.”

“I wouldn’t worry if I was you. Miller likes your woik, and you got a good contact with our band. It was just last week he started bookin’ you, wasn’t it? And you played two dates with us awready. That ain’t bad. ‘Fcourse, not everybody wantsa pay for extra entertainment outside of the band, but I wouldn’ be surprised if you knock off three dates a week on the average. And after a while maybe you’ll catch a wire too.”

“Radio would help a lot. Do you really think there’s a chance?”

“Well, there’s lotsa woiss singers than you on the air.”

That didn’t sound at all complimentary, and it made Susan involuntarily lift her eyebrows. Being informed, after some years of study, that her voice wasn’t big enough for opera or for the concert stage had made her somewhat unsure of herself. Looks, she knew, counted in this new work she was doing; she was not unaware of her attractiveness and of the obvious possibility that it colored people’s opinion of her as an artist. She wanted to be rated solely on ability. She had met Harry only twice, when she had worked with the band, and had talked to him for but a few minutes each time. When he had asked, simply, if he might come to see her, she had acquiesced, because she had immediately been attracted by his earnest manner and his frank, boyish smile, and because it was refreshing not to be subjected to the overture of wisecracks which she had come to believe to be a fixed Broadway custom. Harry seemed to be the sort who would be honest with her. She was a bit apprehensive of what his opinion might be, but, nevertheless, she took the plunge.

“Harry,” she said, “you’re an experienced dance musician, you’ve heard lots of singers of popular songs and you ought to know a lot about it. Tell me, do you like the way I put my songs over?”

“Well, look, kid,” Harry began, deliberatingly. “Do you want the oil or the real lowdown?”

“I want you to say what you really think, of course!”

Harry lit a cigarette, realizing that he had already committed himself to some sort of criticism. Well, Susan seemed really to want to know the truth, and he decided that it would be kinder to give her a good steer rather than the meaningless raves to which she was probably accustomed.

“Awright,” he said, “the lowdown. Here it is: You got a nice sweet paira pipes. And the voice does sumpm to the customers; otherwise, even though you are a cute package, Miller wouldn’ keep on bookin’ you. But there’s a million dames with good looks and nice straight voices. Some of ‘em even get inta the big dough. So what?”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, the point is you’re woikin’ with a swing outfit. Whyncha try to loin sumpm about swing?”

“But I’m not a trumpeter or a saxophonist. I’m a singer.”

“Whatsa difference?”

“Why, there’s lots of difference.”

“But there shouldn’ oughta be! A singer oughta think of ’erself like one of the instruments, specially when she’s woikin’ with a band. Why do singers hafta be corny? Odduv every thousand there’s maybe one — like Connie Boswell — who’s got the real mmph — you know what I mean — the real bounce, the real shake. The rest of ’m, well, insteada puttin’ a riff in where it belongs, they shake their elbows or their hips, or they say ‘hi-dee-hi,’ as if it was the woids insteada the notes that counts. ’Fcourse, the old poissonality hasta be there, and it’s much more important with a dame who’s singin’ than with a musician. But it gets me sore the way they fool the customers. Spose, when I had a solo, I jumped up and began wigglin’ around and playin’ icky — would that make me a ride man? Not by a long shot. Then why do they call a singer hot when all she’s got is a figger and maybe a cute way of flashin’ ’er lamps?”

“What would you want me to do — imitate Connie Boswell?”

“You could do woiss. Butcha don’t hafta imitate ’er. Study ’er stuff and get the feelin’ for it. And then you can start puttin’ your own stuff in. You don’t hear me imitatin’ anybody, do you? Inna beginning, I got all my stuff from Red Nichols and Louie Armstrong and a coupla others, and then, when I got kinda soaked in it — it got all mixed up, sorta, inside of me — it began comin’ out more and more different and original alla time.” Harry was getting excited. He looked hopefully at Susan, but sensed that there wasn’t much rapport between them on the subject. “I don’t know if I’m puttin’ myself across, kid. It’s hard to say what I mean, except on the horn.”

“I think I understand,” Susan said doubtfully.

“You hafta wanna give,” Harry said. “You hafta wanna get off on it, like Cab Calloway or the Mills Brothers.”

Susan stared at him perplexedly. The swing temperament, to her, was unfathomable. Swing musicians, as a group, were all very queer. They laughed at the strangest things; always seemed to be enjoying among themselves a joke the point of which outsiders couldn’t get at all. They belonged to a distinctive sect and appeared to be aware of it. Perhaps their attitude of lightheartedness was due, in. part, to the fact that they didn’t know what work — in the sense that her father, for example, pushing a plane and a saw all day, understood it — really meant. Their work was the happiest kind of play. No wonder they couldn’t be serious about anything. Perhaps Harry was different from the others in that respect. But she doubted that any subject — no matter how important — but swing music could inspire in him the intense enthusiasm, the almost religious fervor with which he had been talking.

“Look, Sue,” Harry said in desperation. “I can see I didn’t make it click yet. Forget about everything I told you and come over here to the piano.” He sat down at the baby grand. Susan stood at the upper end of the keyboard, facing him. “Now, I ain’t got much of a voice,” he said, “but I know how it oughta be done and I got enough control to give you some samples. Foist we’ll take one of the fundamental get-offs. In the old days it was ‘doo-wackadoo.’ Now it’s ‘bwah-wandi-dough,’ with a hotter swing. Get me?” Harry struck some simple chords. “Now sing. Bwah-wahdi-dough.”

Susan felt very silly. She blushed, swallowed a few times, and then sang the syllables.

“Again,” Harry said.

She sang them again and several more times.

“You don’t get the accent right,” said Harry. “Step on the ‘di,’ but cut it short.”

He demonstrated once more. Susan repeated it, but it still lacked fire.

“Well, I can see that don’t click either,” Harry said. “But maybe it will if I give you a longer phrase to hang on to. Here: Bwah-wahdi-dough. Mbee-mbah-mboodi … No, no. When you get to the sounds beginning with b, make your lips spring open — blow ’em open — it should be like a series of liddle explosions, and the mm’s tie ’em together.”

Susan, though anxious to learn, still didn’t get it. She stood there, doing things with her lips like a silly goldfish — but a very beautiful goldfish — until Harry began to forget about the lesson. He was debating whether to do to those lips what seemed, at the moment, had to be done, but just as he leaned toward her, there was a “Grmph” from the doorway. Mr. Smith was standing there.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but is there something wrong? Mrs. Smith was worried. Asked me to find out what those strange noises were. And I must admit I was a bit alarmed too.”

Harry and Susan looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“We’re laughing at ourselves, dad,” Susan explained. “Harry is just trying to teach me something about shake music.”

“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Smith, as he withdrew. But it was quite plain that he didn’t “see” at all.

“Try those b sounds again,” Harry said, standing up and facing Susan. This time he didn’t care in the least whether she did it right or not. As soon as she had pursed up her round, ripe, cherry-red lips, he pounced at them with his own. She drew back, but not quickly enough to make the frown which followed appear consistent.

“Gee, Sue, I hope you don’t think the whole thing was just a gag,” Harry said. “That wasn’t part of the lesson. I just couldn’t help it. Honest, I couldn’t. Are you angry?”

He was so palpably contrite, Sue’s frown vanished.

“Of course, I’m angry,” she said. And then she smiled, because she had to admit to herself that it wasn’t true.

Harry went home with two previously formed opinions strongly confirmed. First, that Susan was a knockout. But second, that, as far as swing was concerned, she just didn’t have what it takes. It was difficult to explain that to her. Everybody was talking about swing, but very few knew what it meant. There had been a time when it annoyed him that people insisted on thinking they did know. But not now anymore. He had learned that the most one could hope for was a few sincere appreciators. There were always the members of the band, of course, and once in a long, long while, an outsider. You could easily tell, looking over a crowd of dancers, which ones you were really reaching. The rhythm got all of them — that was fundamental — but it was just one or two couples who usually kept near the bandstand while they danced, straining their ears for the pretty little subtleties of swing music, who really “felt” it. You could see them respond — with a grin, a jerk of the head, a sudden quick step — to that funny scream on the clarinet, the bubbly gliss on the trombone, the metallic hiss of muted cymbals in a cleverly inserted beat between embellishments of the solo instruments. And when the dance was over and the dancers stood, panting and applauding, on the floor, you caught the eye of one of them, perhaps, and it was like a precious secret between you. The others would never know, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. One either had the gift for appreciation — it seemed as rare, almost, as the gift for creating hot music — or one had not. Susan happened to be one of those who had not. Perhaps it would have been better not to have started it at all — this business of singing hot. She had been getting along nicely without it. Why get her all upset and dissatisfied with herself about it? And who was he to try to meddle with the intangibles of personality and temperament? Better to leave things as they had been. She was a wonderful kid and he was in love with her. When that and the promise in her smile after the stolen kiss were considered, swing seemed of very little importance.

But Harry’s decision not to meddle further with Susan’s singing technique had been reached without consulting Susan. Her interest aroused, she begged for further coaching. Harry would have liked to take her places, but she wanted to stay at home and practice singing, and he had to consent. So the coaching went on, without any sign of improvement in Susan’s style. Until one night, Harry, made irritable by her insistence on singing when he wanted to hold her in his arms and talk about the future, lost patience.

“Oh, what’s the use, Sue?” he said, after a half hour’s repetition of some simple hot phrases which Susan made sound very chilly. “You ain’t got it and you never will get it. Sorry I ever brought it up.”

“But I thought I was doing pretty well,” Susan said, very disappointed.

“That’s the hell of it,” Harry tried to explain. “It’s like a trumpet I once knew. He was a good paper man — went as far as anyone could, just readin’ the spots — but there wasn’t a real hot note in his whole getup. He should’a’ known it, but, like you, he didn’t. All of a sudden he got the notion that he was a sender, and he began tryin’ to play gut-bucket. Bought ’imself all kindsa tricky mutes, wasted a lot of rough tone, and it didn’t mean a thing. He thought he was a second Bix Beiderbecke and nobody could tell ’im anything different. It was awright when he played straight — there’s a place for straight men in this racket — but his sposed-to-be hot stuff was so sad that it took the bounce out of every band he woiked with. He got to be such a pain that none of the leaders would give ’im a job. And still he wasn’ convinced — thought the whole world had it in for ’im. Well, now he’s with a long-underwear gang, all cornfeds, like him; sorta hypnotized theirselves inta thinkin’ they know the way to town. He gets along somehow, but would you wanna be like that? Havin’ people who really know what’s what laughin’ at you? Take my advice and forget what I tried to teach you and go back to the straight stuff.”

Susan had tried so hard! She recalled the last time she had sung with the band. After one of her numbers, she had looked to Harry for encouragement, but all she got was a sad smile, sympathetic, but one which told her plainly that she was as far as ever from attaining what he had tried to teach her. Now she felt hurt, humiliated, and angry.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I always thought it was vulgar, anyway. All that noise and blah — cheap!”

Harry didn’t like having the art form to which he was devoting himself spoken of in that way.

“If that’s the way you feel about it — noise and blah, cheap and vulgar — why dincha stick to grand opera in the foist place?” he said. “You should be at the Metropolitan at least.”

Susan was very touchy about her former aspirations. “Cheap and vulgar,” she spitefully repeated. “That’s what it is — and lowbrow!”

“Galli-Curci speaking!” Harry scoffed.

That was too much for Susan.

“Good night, Mr. Tack!” Susan said stiffly.

Harry stood up, straightening out all of his sixty-six inches. “Foist, sour grapes, and now a crack at my name. That ain’t cheap, I spose! Well, lemme tell you, there’s been some tremendous shots in the Tack family. That name’s got class. It ain’t corny — like ‘Smith,’ f’rinstance!”

Susan began to splutter, but that didn’t stop Harry from grabbing up his hat and coat and stamping out of the house.

The next time Susan sang with the band, she completely ignored him, and at the end of the evening she went home with Bill Devoe, the leader. Harry told himself that she was only trying to make him jealous, punish him. They’d make up, somehow. They had to — why, he had been on the point of proposing to her! Surely she knew how much he cared for her, in spite of the stupid quarrel they’d had. But Susan continued to let Bill take her home, night after night, and Harry began to upbraid himself for having lost his temper. He should have remained cool and polite, and then she would have had no justification for her coldness toward him. He wanted to talk to her, to apologize — if only she would meet him part way, so that he wouldn’t have to feel that he was forcing himself upon her — but she continued, stubbornly, to ignore him. Well, he wouldn’t try anymore, he decided. She’d have to be the first to talk now. He could be just as stubborn as she.

One night after a job, while the boys were packing their instruments, he caught Archie Wallenhoffer, the pianist, staring at Susan as she went out of the hall, arm in arm, as usual, with Bill Devoe. Archie was a big pudgy mopy fellow whom, it seemed, nothing could stir up except a hot tune. Harry somehow had never imagined Archie in love, but he realized now that the state of his own heart had not increased his awareness of what was going on around him. How could any man help falling for Sue?

“You too?” he said to Archie.

Archie sadly nodded. “How about a good old bender?”

Harry thought that a good suggestion, so they went downtown to a certain little place they knew and got thoroughly cockeyed.

“What chance do we stand,” Archie asked, “when Bill’s nuts about ’er?”

Harry, in a more sober state, might have considered the “we” presumptuous. Even now it seemed a bit too familiar. But as one who had been rejected, he couldn’t protest, even though it did make the whole affair something less than exclusive.

“Bill’s got everything a dame wants,” Archie went on. “Looks, dough and fame. And we’re just a coupla musicians — a dime a dozen.”

“Guess there’s only one thing for us to do,” Harry said. “You keep slappin’ the keys and I’ll keep ridin’ the piston, and we’ll both try to forget about ’er.”

This newly adopted philosophy of resignation, however, helped neither of them. Because it would have been difficult to forget a girl like Susan without seeing her two or three times a week. The one way out seemed to be to quit the band and seek a berth elsewhere. It was a hard thing to do. Harry had known the boys for a long time and they were the best friends he had. But Archie liked the idea, and it seemed easier to carry out when there were two of them. They decided to wait until New Year’s Eve, which was only a few days off. The band had an important engagement that night. For Harry and Archie it would be a sort of farewell party.

Early in the clear cold evening of the thirty-first of December there stood on a midtown corner a small built-to-order bus which had lettered on its sleek shiny outside, “Bill Devoe and His Club Orchestra.” The boys frequently played at homes and clubs in the suburbs, and the agent had decided that, musicians generally not being the most reliable people in the world, a private conveyance would save him a lot of last-minute headaches. Of course, there was no assurance that none of them would never miss the bus, but it was much more certain than having them travel as they pleased. Besides, the bus was a good advertisement.

Inside it were all the members of the band but the leader.

“I hope Bill gets here pretty quick with that broad,” said Al, one of the saxophonists. “It’s cold sittin’ still like this.”

Archie gave Al a dirty look. “Someday,” the pianist slowly said, “you’ll gedda good paste on the puss and maybe you’ll loin that not all dames is ‘broads.’”

“Why, Archie boy, is she got you sunk too?” Al asked.

The others all laughed, and Archie thought it best not to carry the subject any further. Harry didn’t say a word. He understood Archie’s chivalrous gesture and sympathized with it, but he was also inwardly amused by it. Another bus carrying a load of entertainers pulled up at the curb behind them. Then Bill and Susan arrived, and both buses started off uptown.

“Never too soon,” Al said, taking a flask out of his pocket.

But Bill stopped him. “Put that away! We got a job to do, New Year’s Eve or no New Year’s Eve. There’ll be enough of that later on. I want you boys to be able to toe the mark — at least until the customers don’t know the difference anymore.”

“Kinda dumb, anyhow, bringin’ your own along,” one of the men pointed out to Al. “Don’tcha think the Burgess crowd’ll take care of that?”

The Burgess home, a million-dollar estate, was forty miles out of town, in the hills. Old Man Burgess, it was said, owned most of the hills too.

The bus rolled steadily along, its chained wheels, echoed by those of the bus following it, clicking against the cleared strip of concrete between endless snow banks. Harry and Archie were slumped down in a rear seat, their knees against the back of the seat in front of them, their hats pushed forward over their noses. They tried not to stare too much at Susan, who sat in the front part of the bus, talking with Bill and the others near her. Frequently her laughter tinkled through the car. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

Al unpacked his clarinet.

“How ’bout you, Harry?” he asked. “C’mon, take out the plumbing.”

Al and Harry, it was conceded, were the best swingsters in the band. But Harry wasn’t swinging now.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I ain’t in the mood. Don’t expect anything but corn outa me tanight.”

“Corn, on New Year’s Eve? Wanna break my heart? Say it ain’t so!” Al pleaded, and he blew a high run on his clarinet.

Harry saw Susan turn around and glance at him; it seemed, from her thoughtful expression, that she was going to say something to him, but she quickly turned away. It gave him hope, but only for a moment. “Probably accidental,” he thought. “She didn’t mean to look at me at all.”

The trombonist and the guitarist took out their instruments and joined Al. The three of them played and the others sang, laughed and joked. All but Harry and Archie.

“Don’tchoo guys realize it’s New Year’s Eve?” Al said. He got up and went to the back of the bus and blew his clarinet at them. “Smadda with you two boids, anyhow?”

“Lay off!” Archie angrily whispered. “‘Beat it!”

Taken aback by the fierce tone — it wasn’t like Archie to get sore at anybody — Al shrugged his shoulders and rejoined the merrymakers at the front of the car.

The evening was still young when the buses pulled into the driveway of the Burgess estate, but several young people, obviously intent on a good time and as much of it as possible, met them at the entrance to the huge house and gave them a wild loud welcome. They were ushered into a ballroom whose size and splendor made them think for a moment that they were in a swanky hotel. Soon they had unpacked, arranged themselves on the platform at one end of the room, and started a dance number.

By ten o’clock, the ballroom was pretty well filled. It was a gay crowd, the holiday spirit was contagious, and Harry gradually lost himself in the music and began doing justice to his trumpet. Archie, too, couldn’t help swinging in good style. At eleven, the entertainers took part in a previously rehearsed floor show, night-club fashion. There was a chorus of dancers, some comedians, a quartet, and some solo numbers. After that their work was done and the entertainers mixed with the crowd. It was as much their party as the guests’. Susan, though, continued working with the band, singing a chorus or two, now and then.

At midnight there was a tremendous din. The guests blew whistles and horns, rang bells, cheered, shouted, yelled and generally conducted themselves as was considered seemly for the first few minutes of the new year. The band played Auld Lang Syne, everybody got a bit maudlin, and then, with the help of servants who were constantly making the rounds with loaded trays for those who were too lazy to help themselves from the side tables, things began gradually to disintegrate.

At about 2:30, the additive effect of the many little sips between dances were beginning to tell on Harry. He sat in a corner near the bandstand with a glass in his hand, wondering whether he had had enough to drink. More, he decided, couldn’t make him any more miserable than he already was. He contemplated the color of the liquid in the glass, preparatory to tossing it off — just like Susan’s hair it was when the light caught it — and then Bill tapped him on the shoulder. Bill had been drinking too.

“Snap odduvit, Harry,” he said unsteadily. “We ain’t played a number in about a half hour. And we can’t find Archie. C’mon, help me find Archie.”

All the men in the band engaged in a search, and finally Archie was discovered where no one had thought to look for him — on the bandstand under the piano, asleep. Bill angrily reprimanded him.

“Whaddaya mean, bawlin’ me out?” Archie complained as they got him to his feet. “Wasn’ I here alla time, ready for woik? ’At’s me, Johnny onna spot!”

When the band was ready to begin, Harry suddenly got a bad chill and began to shiver.

“Hold it a minute, fellas,” he said, getting up and going into the anteroom. When he returned, he was dressed in overcoat, muffler, hat, spats and gloves.

“O.K. Now we can start,” he said, and flopped into his chair.

“Quit clownin’,” Bill said, angrily. “You’re spoilin’ the looks of the band. Whaddaya think we’re wearin’ monkey suits for?”

“But I got a chill, I tellya. Want me to catch cold and die?”

“We don’t start till you take those extra duds off!”

“Suits me!” Harry put his trumpet in his lap, folded his arms, leaned back and closed his eyes.

“You’re fired!” Bill said in a rage.

Harry opened his eyes, looked at Bill and began to guffaw. He turned to Archie. “Hear that, Arch? I’m fired!” and he laughed more loudly than ever, Archie joining in.

“Awright, wise guy; you’re fired too!” Bill said to Archie. “You’re both through after tanight.”

Now both Harry and Archie laughed quite insanely. But meanwhile people were demanding music, and Bill had to surrender to Harry’s whim. He raised his baton, brought it down and the band began to play, but he lost his balance and almost fell off the platform. Someone gave him a chair. He led sitting down for the rest of the dance.

Susan, standing on the bandstand while she waited for the beginning of a chorus she was to sing, looked around her in distress. She had seen some gay parties, but none before nearly so bacchanalian in spirit as this one. Only a dozen couples of the, hundred or so present were dancing. The others were gathered in noisy groups about the ballroom and in the corridors and on the glass-enclosed terrace which encircled the house. In the center of the ballroom floor, some men were trying to find out how many chairs could be placed one on the other without toppling, and three or four girls in the group were excitedly shrieking, in anticipation of a crash. The behavior of some of the other girls could hardly have been considered decorous. Susan felt very lonesome.

At the end of the dance, Bill remained in the chair from which he had conducted the band. His face was on his chest and his arms hung limply at his sides. The baton had slipped out of his fingers. His bow tie was undone. Susan stood studying Bill with her chin in her hand. She saw Harry, out of the corner of her eye, wander away from the bandstand, out on to the terrace. She looked at Bill again. Not very attractive when he was drunk. And what a nasty disposition — firing two of his men! Harry was drunk too. But they said a man’s true nature showed itself when he was drunk, and Harry hadn’t been mean, like Bill, at all. Just childish. And perhaps she was partly to blame. She had seen that sad pleading look in his eyes more than once, during the last week or two, when she had been sure that he didn’t know she was looking at him. And on the bus — she had wanted to say something then, just a few words, anything, to let him know she wanted to talk to him. But with Bill there, and the others, she hadn’t been able to. And all this evening he had seemed unapproachable. But what else could she expect, the way she had treated him? And now, Harry, poor boy, was ill. She felt she was to blame for that.

Harry found a comfortable divan between some potted shrubs in a quiet corner of the terrace toward the back of the house, and stretched himself out in it. He was sobering up, but he felt dizzy, weak and extremely-depressed. “Nobody loves me,” he hummed sadly. He sat there, staring out from under the brim of his hat into the cold blue hills for what seemed a long time, and then he heard footsteps.

“Harry?” a soft feminine voice came from behind the shrubs.

“Harry?” he heard again, as if in a dream, and Susan stood before him. She seemed worried and embarrassed.

Harry’s chill left him. He hastily removed his hat, muffler and gloves.

“We hafta play again?” he stammered, not knowing what else to say.

“No. It’s after four and the crowd’s thinning out. Mrs. Burgess is putting us up for the rest of the night. There’s plenty of room, and the girls thought it safer to wait here.”

“That’s interesting. But I think I’ll stay right here and watch the sun come up.”

It would be a beautiful sunrise over those snow-covered hills, Susan thought. And how nice it would be to watch it with Harry. He was looking questioningly at her.

“Well?” he said.

The light was dim, but Harry thought he saw her face flush.

“Why did you laugh like that when Bill said you were fired?” she blurted out.

“Really wanna know? Well, you see, Archie and I were gawna tell Bill, before the night was over, that we’re quittin’. Somehow we never got around to it, though, and when he told us we were fired, it struck us funny, ’specially because we were both kinda high, I spose. Now we don’t hafta tell ’im.”

“But Bill was high too. He didn’t mean it. And by tomorrow he’ll forget all about it. He’d never let you and Archie go if he could help it. You’re both too good.”

“Nice of you to say so. But I was gawna quit anyhow, don’tcha see?”

“Why?”

“Oh, there’s reasons. But look, Babe; does it make any difference?”

Susan pouted and looked at the floor. Harry tried to stand up, groaned and fell back on to the divan. Susan quickly bent over him.

“What’s the matter, Harry? Are you ill? I — I’ll bring you some hot coffee.”

“Naw, I don’ want any coffee, thanks. Sit down here and tell me what this is all about.”

Susan sat down next to Harry. Then Archie appeared.

“I thought so, pal. Seems like our deal is off,” Archie said, looking at them tragically. “But, well, I can’t blame you. Trumpets always was lucky stiffs. But pianists — ” He sadly shook his head. Then he smiled, as if something funny had suddenly occurred to him. “Well, pardon me for bargin’ in. Guess I’ll go find Bill and laugh some more at ’im. A good long laugh. He must be comin’ to by now.” Giggling in anticipation, Archie hurried away.

“Didja know Archie was groggy aboutcha?” Harry said.

“I wondered what he meant! No, I didn’t suspect it at all. He never said a word.”

“Tough on ’im. They don’t come any better than Archie. But let’s get back to us. Foist of all, what about Bill?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I thought I liked him. But going with him didn’t mean anything. Really it didn’t.”

“And where do I come in? Why the sudden thaw?”

Susan played with a decoration on her gown, avoiding Harry’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t begin to put into words what she felt. Didn’t Harry realize that she had been fond of him all along? He wasn’t being helpful in the least, silently sitting there, waiting for an answer to his last question.

From inside the ballroom came the sound of blue, yet-not-unhappy piano music. Subconsciously, Harry began tapping his foot. Susan found herself tapping hers too. Then Harry reached for her hand and held it. That made it easier. “Fond,” she suddenly decided, was a very weak word. A deliciously ecstatic warmth crept over her, and all at once she knew what to do. She sang:

“Bwah-wahdi-dough. Mbee-mbah-mboodi.” This time it was very, very hot, and she went on from there with some stuff — it seemed to come out by itself — that even Harry had never heard before. He must have understood what she was trying to tell him because he didn’t let her sing much more, but interrupted with an invitation to a clinch which she accepted willingly — even eagerly, it might be said.

It turned out to be quite a sunrise.

Barry Manilow: The Surprise Jingle Hitmaker

Just hearing the opening line “Like a good neighbor…” necessarily invokes the rest of the earworm: “State Farm is there!” Although the lyrics aren’t currently in use in State Farm advertisements (ditched two years ago for the “Here to help life go right” campaign), the “Like a Good Neighbor” jingle has seemingly been the lifeblood of the State Farm brand for decades, like a radio hit that won’t go away. It makes sense, then, that the jingle was written by Barry Manilow at the start of his career in 1971.

He made 500 dollars for writing the song that would be used for years in different capacities in the insurance company’s advertising campaigns. It wasn’t his only foray into the industry, though. A young, prolific Manilow in the ’60s and ’70s wrote and recorded heaps of famous jingles. When he received an honorary award at the 2009 CLIO advertising awards, Manilow noted that writing advertising jingles was “the best music college I could ever imagine,” despite having studied at New York College of Music and Juilliard. “What I learned most of all in my jingle days was how to write a catchy melody,” Manilow said in an interview.

So the pop superstar’s hits like “Copacabana” and “Could It Be Magic” might not exist if he hadn’t spent years composing commercial tunes.

Manilow began his collegiate studies in night classes at City College of New York. He majored in advertising, because, as he claimed (in Patricia Butler’s 2002 biography), “The choices were listed alphabetically and advertising was first under A.” He didn’t stay with it long, however, taking a job in the CBS mailroom and eventually enrolling in the New York College of Music. Manilow stayed busy in the early years, taking piano gigs and composing a full musical score (The Drunkard) while maintaining his position at CBS. He also began writing and performing jingles for some leading brands.

His first paid tune was with Dodge. Then, Manilow wrote “Like a Good Neighbor” for State Farm and “Stuck on Band-Aid” for Band-Aid. He also sang in “Give Your Face Something to Smile About” for Stridex and “Finger-Lickin’ Good Day” for KFC. His big break, according to an interview with Chicago’s ABC 7, was the dramatic showstopper “You Deserve a Break Today” Manilow sang for McDonald’s.

While he was performing with Bette Midler at the Continental Baths in Manhattan and trying to jumpstart his own recording career, Manilow performed in Dr. Pepper’s “The Most Original Soft Drink” (written by Randy Newman) and “Join the Pepsi People,” and he even wrote “Bathroom Bowl Blues” for Green Bowlene.

Manilow often plays his famed jingles at concerts to his “Fanilows” who don’t mind if he stumbles over a lyric or two. While the enterprise of jingle-writing led to a lucrative recording career for Manilow, he scarcely made residuals on any of the still-familiar commercial tunes. State Farm still uses the nine-note hook Manilow wrote for them — now as a lo-fi, 16-bit soundtrack — but he hasn’t seen a dime from them since the initial 500.

An Interview with Hans Zimmer, Hollywood’s Hottest Composer

Hans Zimmer is one of Hollywood’s most successful and innovative composers, with soundtracks for over 150 films ranging from Driving Miss Daisy to Gladiator to the current Oscar frontrunner, Dunkirk. Zimmer’s original score for The Lion King earned him an Academy Award; he’s been nominated for eight more.

The celebrated musician fought past his life-long stage fright to give a show-stopping performance on last year’s Grammy Awards, providing guitar riffs for Pharrell Williams. That inspired a world tour, giving enthusiastic audiences live performances of the powerful musical moments they first experienced in a dark theater. He was a surprise hit at Coachella alongside mega-stars like Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga.

Since he was a kid, Zimmer just wanted to make music. “My father died when I was really young, so growing up, music was a refuge for me,” he remembers.

“Then when you become a teenager, it turns into a completely different thing. It becomes — how am I going to say this politely? – when it comes to girls, it’s better than talking to them.”

Jeanne Wolf: Now that your live show is a hit, can I finally call you a rock star?

Hans Zimmer: I don’t think I’m a rock star but it is exciting to go out there and play in front of people instead of hiding behind a movie screen. I have a feeling that it might have made me a better composer, because I was actually able to feel the audience in real time rather than what we do making movies, where we’re basically guessing. We’re hoping that the soundtrack we’re creating is going to resonate and add to the experience for people in a theater. As soon as I finish a movie, I forget everything that I’ve written. I have to forget, because otherwise you don’t make room for the new ideas. So when we are playing the old soundtracks every night on tour, we are reinventing and sort of improving them. That’s a luxury you don’t have when you’re making a film.

 

 

JW: There has been a remarkable reaction to your compositions for the movie Dunkirk. The suspense-driving track is so unique that it’s hard to describe. Where did that come from?

HZ: Usually I start out by writing a tune, but there’s no melody in the Dunkirk soundtrack. The whole idea was how do we keep the tension going? How do we play with the concept that time is running out? Everything had to live up to that. For months I would go to sleep, and I would start dreaming the scenes, and then I would wake up and go back to the studio. I never had any reprieve from it. When I actually went on the Dunkirk location, the weather had turned really nasty. I was on that beach, and it was unbearably cold. Sand was blowing at you from every direction, the poor actors were standing there in the freezing wind, and there’s [director] Chris Nolan charging down the beach. So when I was composing, I felt Chris’ hand on my hand like he was pressing the keys down with me. I really tried as much as possible to make it his score.

JW: With all you’ve done, I always love your enthusiasm.

HZ: The operative word in music is play. The thing that we really carry over from our childhood is that sense of playfulness. I think all that happens is we try to get very serious about being very playful. The hours we keep are absurd. I’m forever begging forgiveness of my children for not being around, but on the other hand, they love being in my studio. I think what my kids have seen through their whole childhood watching me work is people being passionate about what they’re doing and having fun, having a sense of humor about a catastrophe (which isn’t really a catastrophe). Making movies, there’s never enough time, never enough money, it’s raining on the day you need sunshine, and it’s sunny on the day you’re trying to shoot a rain scene. I sort of make it my job in a funny way to remind the filmmakers what the original dream was and enhance it. I think about what made every body try to do the impossible.

 

 

JW: I have interviewed a lot of rock stars, and they talk about that high when you connect with the audience. Did you experience that kind of connection?

HZ: Constantly, constantly. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I really felt that the audience was hungry to have a different experience, and we managed to give them that. They had a sort of idea what it would be like, but to be honest, no one has ever done it this way, so the element of surprise was really nice, and the element of surprise for me was really nice. Just how open they were and how welcoming they were. I asked everybody for advice before this, and people kept saying that the attention span of young people is really bad these days, and you have to play short pieces. I don’t know. “Pirates” is 14 minutes long. “The Dark Knight” thing is 22 minutes long. These aren’t short pieces, and the audience really stuck with it. The audience loved that we would take them on a journey and take them back into the world.

JW: How great was that? You are still so excited about what you do. I love your participation. Could you describe what drives you now?

HZ: Yes. Actually what was interesting for this tour was going back. Obviously, I had to go back in time and look at all of the pieces that I’ve written. The tour was playing the old soundtracks again, and every night we were reinventing and sort of improving them. All of the stuff that you can’t do because you have time restrictions. A movie needs to be finished.

JW: And you have to fit to the scene.

HZ: Exactly. So what drives me is basically that I know I can write a better piece of music. I know I’m still learning and figuring it out. Dunkirk was such a learning curve because we really reached through every rule book. It wasn’t even about “Let’s invent a new way of doing this.” It was “Let’s invent and then we actually have to learn how to do it.” Every day was a day of having no idea of how to get around the next corner.

JW: Listening is a big part of your art. Do you think you’re a good listener with the people close to you? Because it’s hard to be nowadays.

HZ: I think I try to be a good listener. My children keep telling me that — so that’s the greatest compliment that I can get.

JW: That is a great compliment. It means you’re hearing me and you understand me.

HZ: Yes, exactly. I suppose you know, partly the reason I have the career I’ve had is that I listen to my directors. I don’t listen when they tell me what to do. I listen to the subtext. I listen to what the —. Look, every movie starts with the same thing. Somebody phones you up and says, “I want to tell you a story,” which is already a great start. What a great life — these people telling me stories.

JW: Has there been a director — there must be more than one — whom you butt heads with or think you’ll never be able to please?

HZ: Oh totally. Often. Those are the directors that I’ve worked with more than once. Gore Verbinsky and I would go at each other pretty badly. Terry Malick once said to me, “The way we speak to each other, only brothers can speak to one another that way.” I remember I was doing Hannibal, working with Ridley Scott. It was about 11 o’clock on a Sunday night. They had just gotten back from shooting, and we were in the cutting room looking at a shot of Julianne Moore’s face with a tear running down her cheek, and I say, “Oh yeah, she’s crying because she’s in love with him.” And Ridley goes, “No. It’s a tear of disgust.” Then we start arguing about this and it got sort of feisty, and suddenly we’re on our feet and we’re in each other’s faces and I just stepped back and I thought, Wow. This is amazing. It’s Sunday night at 11 o’clock and grown men are passionately arguing about what a tear running down a woman’s cheek means.

JW: Have you figured out where you got your courage?

HZ: Well, I think from the people who were kind and took me on when I had no career. Stanley Myers, the great film composer who wrote The Deer Hunter, he took me under his wing. One of the first people I ever got to work with. I also learned a lot from George Martin.

JW: Oh! The Beatles man.

HZ: I remember the first time I ever got paid for doing music was for George Martin. Weirdly, I remember the check more than the sessions. It was astonishing after struggling. I can’t tell you how many tins of baked beans I ate because it was the only thing I could afford. Somebody was actually paying me to make music.

JW: Wow. How many tins of baked beans did it take to be here?

HZ: Years.

JW: The people don’t understand that the memory of that gives you courage, too.

HZ: My daughter asked me once, “Dad, what was it like being a poor artist?” I realized that I’d never thought about it. It never occurred to me that I was a poor artist because everybody around me was in the same boat. That just seemed to be life, and we were making music all day long. I still have really bad eating habits. I usually don’t have lunch because I’m in the middle of writing something. Do I live a normal life? No. Look, I’m coming up to my 60th birthday, and I think it has worked out so far.

JW: Yes. Oh, boy, has it. We want a full life, but do we really want what someone else defines as a normal life? No. Not somebody who goes to play Coachella.

HZ: No, and the world is shifting tremendously with technology and stuff like this. So many things which we took for granted that came from the Industrial Revolution — like job security — are just disappearing, and I think at the end of the day the one thing that isn’t disappearing is to be an artist. To write poetry, to paint a painting, to write music.

JW: Could you have dreamed that you would be as excited, as turned on, as buzzed about what you do now as you were in the beginning — or more!

HZ: Yes. I don’t know why. Well actually, I have to say, and every director knows this about me, I do a little thing where I ask myself when I get up, “What if I was to go to the studio today to make music, and the answer is ‘No, we need to find somebody else.’” But it hasn’t happened yet. Literally, the last four weeks of the tour we were so tired, but all I was doing was planning the next piece of music and the next adventure. That’s just how I’m built, and everybody around me is sort of built that way as well.

 

An abridged version of this article is featured in the November/December 2017 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.