Monday, February 14, 2011

The Lives of a Love Song in the 20th Century

One of my favorite songs is "(You Were) Always On My Mind", and as today is Valentine's Day, I thought I'd embark upon the musical equivalent of a "tasting flight" (a recently fashionable offering in restaurants and pubs of small quantities of several wines or beers) of some of the numerous versions of that song that have been recorded by a wide range of artists in different styles over the years.

The song was written in the genre of country music by Johnny Christopher, Mark James (who also wrote Elvis Presley's hit, "Suspicious Minds"), and Wayne Carson Thompson (who also wrote "The Letter", made famous by the Box Tops.)

Following in the modality of exploring the miracle of information-gathering in the 21st Century in my first meditation of the New Year, I can proceed first to search for online versions (i.e., on the Internet), and to compare the styles and approaches of several different artists.

The first recording was by the popular Brenda Lee (see her official Website here) in 1972, when the song reached number 45 on the Top 100 Country Music Hits chart of Billboard Magazine. Of course, now it's 2011, and a music lover who wants to consult the current Billboard charts to see who's rising and who's falling in a given musical genre can, in many cases, be fowarded to the artist's or record company's online Web link (for example, on MySpace--official Website here) to hear the song in streaming media format (ranging from a brief excerpt to the entire song with a few silent patches), share the link with an online friend, see the lyrics, or purchase the song as an MP3 which can be downloaded from a Website (iTunes, Amazon.com, cduniverse.com, etc.) Oh yes, and download to a cell phone a ringtone from the song. . . .

In any case, her version is quite straightforward, as in this brief introduction, yet sublimely honest and eloquent in its own idiom:









We can ask why this song is so popular, why its melody and its message have endured through time and different interpretive styles. The version just heard is on most levels true to form: the distinctive voice of the singer, seasoned by experience yet preserved by a kind of girlish, breathless innocence so often found in country music, with the instrumental accompaniment running parallel with chugging violins and a plaintive guitar ringing with drama and pain, and the limpid liquid voice of the pedal steel guitar with its rounded glides from note to note still reassuringly voicing a message of hope. And the lyrics, pervaded by guilt but still apologizing, asking forgiveness, begging for another chance--what is there here that is not recognizable in the human condition?

Well, let's take the song to the next level, with Elvis Presley's version released in the same year as the "B-side" of his "Separate Ways". The logistics of popular music's popularity through most of the twentieth century were driven by the release of "single" records--whether in highly breakable 10" (diameter) 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) shellac discs, or later in the 7" 45 rpm vinyl format that lasted into the end of the century--in which one side was guessed to be a likely "hit", but with a backup song on the other side that would at least be listenable, and which in some cases, grew in popularity to eclipse the song on the "A" side. (I go into some technical detail here because I realize anyone born after 1990, or even earlier, will have no idea what I am talking about in terms of music available on "hard copy" recordings, actual physical artifacts in sound.)

In any case, the Elvis version rose (soared?--the metaphors of popular music being particularly kinetic) to #16 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in November of 1972:









Well, we might well ask, what accounts for the greater popularity of Elvis' recording? In terms of the instrumental arrangement, the introductions resemble Brenda Lee's rather closely, though more defined in the Elvis version. As voice goes, Elvis' is more resonant that Brenda's, with more capacious tremolo, and his dialect is more mainstream: "I" ("aa-ee", a dipthong, in effect, two syllables) instead of the single syllable "Aa" in the more "country" pronunciation, as is Brenda's "yee-oo" (diphthong), instead of the monosyllabic "yoo" in Elvis' rendition. And again, her "goo-ud" and "hay-uv" softening the words ("good" and "have"), which she utters in her gentle, melodic southern twang (twa-ung . . . . )

On another level of assigning popularity and success, Elvis had become a certified American superstar following his "meteoric" rise (that is to say, fast and bright--though actual meteors fall down the sky) in the 1950's, following the 1956 release of "Heartbreak Hotel", his first recording for RCA Records--a mainstream international label, in comparison with the more recognizably southern Sun Records, on which his first recordings were issued--and a #1 hit on the Billboard Top 100 chart for seven weeks. And with such fame and such a widespread audience--to say nothing of his much celebrated "sex appeal" in that era-- is not surprising that his recording garnered more fame than did Brenda Lee's.

The next time AOMM rose to popularity was in 1979, when the country idiom prevailed yet again, in the soulful rendition by John Wesley Riles (his first two names combined reinforcing his southern/Anglican identity, with more than 3,760,00 hits on Google for the two names alone). His record reached #20 on the Billboard "Hot Country Singles" chart. This version begins with a richly-textured intro (introduction): liquidly sliding electric guitars (seductive) over crisp acoustic piano chords (assertive), and soon a solid bass line (reassuring, anchoring):









Then John begins to sing the familiar lyrics, with the soft, silvery "ting" (or "tick") of the back beat (on the "two" of the "one, two, one, two") of the percussion. His accent re-establishes the regional origins of his interpretation, with the internal repeated rhyme (in boldface below) that rises so effortlessly in country music:

"Maybe I didn't treat you, quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you, quite as often, as I could have. . . ."









The forward flow of the song is enriched and energized by syncopated (off-beat) piano chords at 16 and 22/23 seconds into the clip. The sung melody is enhanced be strings blurring in beginning at 25 seconds, followed by the subtly swelling chorus rising after 37 seconds with the final line, and the heart of the song:

"You were always on my mind. . . . ."

But of course, in the total version of the song, that line is repeated twice, to make the point: No matter what else happened . . . .

But we won't hear it this way yet . . . .

John Wesley kicks in the second verse with a gutsy OOM-PAH on the upbeat (the moment before the main beat of the next rhythmic cycle) of chewing-gum infused saxophone:









to lead into the second verse, with yet another perfectly natural (would you have noticed it if it hadn't been pointed out?) internal rhyme:

"Maybe I didn't hold you, all those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you: I'm so happy that you're mine. . . ."

You can listen to this clip once, twice, more . . . . and each time you'll hear new colors in the instruments (soaring violins, weeping pedal-steel guitar, syncopated chug-a-chug in the piano+strings at the end) and new inflections in his voice (the curling upturn ending a word, the soulful phrasing, and the implied "country" hiccup in the diction):









But following our chronology, and hoping for even more in this song, we come to what to me is the artist who is able to mine the ultimate soul of this song, seemingly, without even trying: Willy Nelson:

The instrumental introduction is pure crystalline piano, but simpler, and more immediate, than the earlier versions, with Willy's haunting voice materializing after only seven seconds, in a natural, even conversational (in terms of song) vibrato (he's just talking to her/you, particularly on the two "I"s), and the word "have" breaking, twice, in shyness, or regret (and his voice is shadowed, caressed by a higher feminine "ooo" after 27 seconds):









and the feminine whispering in . . . agreement, or forgiveness, at 39 seconds after "if I made you feel second best" at 39 ("you did, did you"?), and finally, a soft fusion of male and female voices, at 48 seconds, echoing "you were always on my mind. . . . . " with a choral halo.

A soft, brass "ting" on the cymbal on the upbeat leads into Willy's second verse ("Maybe I didn't ho-old you, all those lonely, lonely times . . . ), continuing to flow along ("I guess I never to-old you, I'm so happy that you're mine . . . .) with eloquently simple instrumentation--the piano embroidering around his voice here and there, a hushed drum track, and a quiet, pure-toned synthesizer replacing the urgently sawing strings or raunchy woodwinds of earlier versions of the song. And his words: "little things I should have said and done--I just never took the time . . . .) sung in a starkly honest admission of neglect, subtly enhanced by his then confession, this time with an even richer swelling of surrounding choral uplift, that "You were always on my mind":









Here (to delve into technical matters for a moment) I might mention that the audio file on my laptop of Willy's song--represented in visual peaks and depths on a sonic graph--continues from start to finish to expand in amplitude, complexity, and density of waveforms (is Willy overdubbing the second verse, singing an almost imperceptible duet with himself?) as each verse passes, with the third verse richer in sonic/graphic terms than the previous two, as the song builds towards its eloquent and heightened conclusion.

Next he offers us his nearly final, insistent rendition of the last verse, now with softly, swellingly reverberant (yet ineffable) choral enhancements of his own voice and message, and a gently insistent and eloquent guitar soliloquy echoing his plea for "one more chance to keep you satisfied", along with pointillistic instrumental embellishments of his sung central theme, that:









And then his final confession, or promise--whatever it is--with his incandescent honesty as the song surges not once, but twice, to its . . . . . fulfillment (could there be a better word?):









Well, there we have it for today. Next: later renditions of this song.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

The 2010 Grammy Winners in World Music!!

I've been watching the "Pre-Grammy Telecast Ceremony", streamed live from the Grammy Website, where a few minutes ago the winning album in the "Best Traditional World Music" category was (from my earlier posting):

4."Ali and Toumani" by Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté, on World-Circuit - Nonesuch Records (World-Circuit Website and Nonesuch Website). Ali Farka Touré's Website and Toumani Diabaté's Website (in French). This recording is particularly notable in that it is the second of two between the Malian superstars Diabaté and Touré, who died in 2006; their earlier collaboration, "In the Heart of the Moon", received a Grammy Award in the same (Traditional) category in 2005, and Diabaté's album,"The Mandé Variations", received a Grammy, again in the Traditional category, in 2009. Touré himself received a Grammy in 1994 for the Best World Music Album (there was only one world music category at that time), "Talking Timbuktu", in a collaboration with protean guitarist Ry Cooder.

This year's performance is a lambent and compelling fusion of the voices of both artists, and of Touré's guitar and Diabaté's kora, a versatile harp-like instrument, popular throughout West Africa, with a large gourd as a resonating chamber and a long neck with frets. You can download a track, "Sabu Yerkoy", from this year's nominated CD, at the Nonesuch Website here.

And the winner in the Best Contemporary World Music category (again from my earlier posting), was:

1."Throw Down Your Heart, Africa Sessions Part 2: Unreleased Tracks", by Béla Fleck on Acoustic Planet Records (a new label founded by Béla Fleck himself). Artist's Website. Fleck won three Grammys last year: Best Contemporary World Music Album for "Throw Down Your Heart: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3: Africa Sessions (which is also the soundtrack for a film of the same name made by Fleck, Website here with option to buy DVD, and trailer here); Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the song "Throw Down Your Heart" from that album; and Best Classical Crossover Album for "The Melody of Rhythm." Fleck has probably won more Grammys (11) than any other World Music artist, and has received 27 nominations in more separate categories (in addition to the three above, Country Instrumental Performance, Contemporary Jazz Album, Bluegrass, Spoken Word, and Jazz Instrumental) than any other musician in Grammy history.

This adds yet one more honor to Béla Fleck, about whom we've previously written (for his collaboration with Abigail Washburn, and for his Grammy nomination last year, and who will warrant a future entry after this year's Grammy, and his extraordinary work in taking the banjo to new levels of collaboration and achievement.

More after tonight's ceremony!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Listen now: Contemporary World Music contenders for the 2011 Grammies!

Note: Links below will enable you to hear musical samples from the 2010 Grammy nominees.

Today we'll look at this year's five nominees in category #75: Best Contemporary World Music Album, which differs from the Traditional category (see previous posting, via this qualification: "The music may also contain elements of popular music styles and/or production techniques. World/Beat, World/Jazz, World Pop, and cross-cultural music with contemporary production techniques are eligible in this category.")

Whereas in the Best Traditional World Music Album category, three nominees were from Africa, and one each from Asia and Latin America, in the Contemporary category noted below, two nominees are from Latin America, one is from Africa, one an American/African collaboration, and one from Asia.

(Note: The listings below are designed for your ease of access to information about the nominees and their music. Click on each album title (given first, in "quotation" marks) for some Web-based sample of music from the album nominated (you may have to click on "Listen to samples", or follow some similar prompt on the Web page to which you are directed). Click on each artist's name (in boldface, following the album title) for further biographical information, and in some cases, pictures of the artist(s). Click on the name of the record company for a description of the company, and the company's Website. Finally, the artist(s)' own Website(s) and/or MySpace and/or Facebook pages is (are) listed, following the record company's name.)

For Best Contemporary World Music Album, this year's entrants are:

1."Throw Down Your Heart, Africa Sessions Part 2: Unreleased Tracks", by Béla Fleck on Acoustic Planet Records (a new label founded by Béla Fleck himself). Artist's Website. Fleck won three Grammys last year: Best Contemporary World Music Album for "Throw Down Your Heart: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3: Africa Sessions (which is also the soundtrack for a film of the same name made by Fleck, Website here with option to buy DVD, and trailer here); Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the song "Throw Down Your Heart" from that album; and Best Classical Crossover Album for "The Melody of Rhythm." Fleck has probably won more Grammys (11) than any other World Music artist, and has received 27 nominations in more separate categories (in addition to the three above, Country Instrumental Performance, Contemporary Jazz Album, Bluegrass, Spoken Word, and Jazz Instrumental) than any other musician in Grammy history.

2. "All in One" by Bebel Gilberto on Verve Records (company Website). Artist's Website and Facebook page. Bebel Gilberto is the daughter of João Gilberto, the Brazilian guitarist and singer credited with being the "Father of Bossa Nova", a musical style that became popular worldwide in the 1960s, reaching its widest influence with the song "The Girl From Ipanema", which won a Grammy for Record of the year in 1965.

3. "ÕŸÖ" by Angélique Kidjo on Razor and Tie Entertainment Records (company's Website). Artist's Website, MySpace page, Facebook page, and YouTube page. She is from the African country of Benin, and is one of the continent's most popular singers, performing widely all over the world in concert, television, films, and recordings. She sings in a variety of styles, and won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2007 for her CD Djin Djin, and nominations in that category in 1993, 2003, and 2005, as well as a nomination for Best Music Video in 1995.

4. "Bom Tempo" by Sérgio Mendes on Concord Records (company's Website). Artist's Website. Méndes has been a leading Brazilian pianist and composer since the 1960s, when he teamed up with popular jazz trumpeter Herb Alpert and a vocalist, bassist, and two percussionists and to form the Bossa Nova-based ensemble Brasil '66, which released a series of successful albums, including the platinum-selling (i.e., more than one million units) record "Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Méndes and Brasil '66". Mendes won a Grammy for "Brasiliero" in the Best World Music Album category in 1966.

5. "Om Namo Narayana: Soul Call" by Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon on Soul Chants Music Records (company Website). Artist's Facebook page, with music samples. Ms. Tandon is a very unusual candidate for a Grammy nomination, in that music is not her primary profession. She is currently Chairman of Tandon Capital Associates, Inc., a financial advisory firm she founded in 1992, and since 2006 she has been Executive-in-Residence at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. While she studied Carnatic (South Indian) classical music as a child, she only decided to undertake serious training in Hindustani (North Indian) classical music seven years ago, after hearing--and being deeply moved by--a concert by the renowned Pandit Jasraj. The nominated album is her first publicly released CD, but her second self-produced album (her first was issued privately to honor her father on his birthday), and all proceeds from the sale and distribution of the CD go to charity through the Tandon Foundation, whose mission is "to educate, empower and transcend". VOAWorldMusic hopes to present an interview with her in a future entry.

So stay tuned in the days following the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, 13 February, when we'll be bringing you more information on the winners not only in the two World Music categories, but on other winners as well, whose music in any of the other 107 (for a total of 109) categories partakes, in one way or another, of the spirit or substance of World Music.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Listen now: Traditional World Music contenders for the 2010 Grammys

Note: Links below will enable you to hear musical samples from the 2010 Grammy nominees.

In December last year, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) announced the nominated CDs (Compact Discs) for the 53rd annual Grammy Awards (see also the official Grammy Website)--an event in the music world comparable to the Academy Awards (or Oscars) in the realm of the cinema, and scheduled for Sunday night, 13 February.

A number of the nominated recordings included performances in the general field of "world music", and two categories were specifically dedicated to that niche: #74 - Best Traditional World Music Album, and #75 - Best Contemporary World Music Album"--among a total of 109 categories of various genres (click here for a complete listing of "Fields" and their "Categories", and here for their full definitions of the individual fields and categories.

Recordings in other fields, such as Alternative, New Age, Latin, Folk, Reggae, and Polka, may in fact have a substantial world music (i.e., international and/or traditional) component, and further general categories (e.g., Record of the Year, Album of the Year, etc.) may occasionally include world music artists. As time permits, I'll be noting nominated world music albums in these areas in future VOAWorldMusic posts. Click here for a complete listing of all this year's (2010) Grammy nominees.

The nominees for #75: Traditional World Music Album (see the complete definition of this category at * at the end of this entry) include three from Africa, and one each from Asia and Latin America. (In the Contemporary category--see my next entry--two nominees are from Latin America, one is from Africa, one an American/African collaboration, and one from Asia.)

The Traditional nominees are:

(Note: The listings below are designed for your ease of access to information about the nominees and their music. Click on each album title (given first, in "quotation" marks) for some Web-based sample of music from the album nominated (you may have to click on "Listen to samples", or follow some similar prompt on the Web page to which you are directed). Click on each artist's name (in boldface, following the album title) for further biographical information, and in some cases, pictures of the artist(s). Click on the name of the record company for a description of the company, and again on the company's Website (in parentheses). Finally, the artist(s)' own Website(s) and/or MySpace and/or Facebook pages is (are) listed, following the record company's name.) For the record (no pun intended), audio samples and/or videos of many of these artists are available on some of their Web pages, or those of their recording company, as well as on YouTube.

1. "Pure Sounds", by the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, on New Earth Records (company's Website). Artist's Website. In this recording, the Monks, practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, illustrate one variety of the haunting vocal tradition known variously as overtone singing, throat singing, or harmonic singing. A similar album by the Monks of the Sherab Ling Monastery, "Sacred Tibetan Chant", won a Grammy in this same category in 2003.

2. "I Speak Fula", by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba (the name of his band), on Sub Pop /Next Ambiance records--a new sister label to Sub Pop (company's Website). Artist's MySpace page and Facebook page. Kouyate, from Mali (as have been many Grammy nominees and winners--see #4 below) sings and plays a skin-covered chordophone (stringed instrument) called the ngoni. His album is also released on a 12-inch vinyl 33 1/3 rpm long playing (LP) disc, which as I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, is for those purist audiophiles he feel that the vinyl analog sound is more natural and music.

3. "Grace" by the Soweto Gospel Choir, on Shanachie Entertainment (company's Website). Artist's Website. This South African ensemble of both men and women singers, with its rich harmonies--and, on this album, occasional instrumental (guitar, percussion) accompaniment--has won two previous Grammys in this category, for "Blessed" in 2006 and "African Spirit"in 2007. Their music is similar in style to that of the all-male Ladysmith Black Mambazo, also from South Africa, who won in the Best Traditional Folk Recording category in 1987 for "Shaka Zulu", and for "Raise Your Spirit Higher" in 2004 and for "Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu" in 2008,--both in the in the Traditional World Music category.

4."Ali and Toumani" by Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté, on World-Circuit - Nonesuch Records (World-Circuit Website and Nonesuch Website). Ali Farka Touré's Website and Toumani Diabaté's Website (in French). This recording is particularly notable in that it is the second of two between the Malian superstars Diabaté and Touré, who died in 2006; their earlier collaboration, "In the Heart of the Moon", received a Grammy Award in the same (Traditional) category in 2005, and Diabaté's album,"The Mandé Variations", received a Grammy, again in the Traditional category, in 2009. Touré himself received a Grammy in 1994 for the Best World Music Album (there was only one world music category at that time), "Talking Timbuktu", in a collaboration with protean guitarist Ry Cooder.

This year's performance is a lambent and compelling fusion of the voices of both artists, and of Touré's guitar and Diabaté's kora, a versatile harp-like instrument, popular throughout West Africa, with a large gourd as a resonating chamber and a long neck with frets. You can download a track, "Sabu Yerkoy", from this year's nominated CD, at the Nonesuch Website here.

5. "Tango Universal" by Vayo Raimondo on Big Dream Music Records (the Spanish company's Website). Artists' Website. In comparison to at least some the other artists nominated above, Raimondo, both a composer and singer originally from Uruguay, is relatively unknown in the U.S., but he has received two previous nominations in 2007 and 2010 for "Best Tango Album" in the Latin Grammy Awards, which honors Spanish and Portuguese language recordings, and held annually since 2000 in Los Angeles.

As often happens, African music dominates in this category, with three entries, and one entry each from Asia and Latin America.

*Full definition for Category 74, Traditional World Music Album:

"For vocal or instrumental traditional world music albums containing at least 51% playing time of newly recorded material. This category is intended for recordings that may combine musical elements indigenous to a culture or country with additional elements of another culture. Non-Western classical music, International non-American and non-British traditional folk music are eligible in this category."

Only the boldface sentence above separates this category from the definition of the next, #75 Contemporary World Music Album, which specifies separately "The music may also contain elements of popular music styles and/or production techniques. World/Beat, World/Jazz, World Pop, and cross-cultural music with contemporary production techniques are eligible in this category." See the next blog entry for the nominees in this category.

So stay tuned in the days following the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, 13 February, when we'll be bringing you more information on the winners not only in the two World Music categories, but on other winners as well, whose music in any of the other 107 (for a total of 109) categories partakes, in one way or another, of the spirit or substance of World Music.