by Nicholas Jahr on May 9, 2012
I’m a little behind the curve on this (as ever), but the end of April saw the return to the internet after nearly two years MIA of the KassaNostra, surely the world’s best-named anonymous folk music blogger. Where was this mysterious figure? Checking out the night life in Havana? Rubbing out their enemies in time for their son’s bris? Witness protection? Who knows. I’m just glad they’re back. (And I’ll use the third-person plural as a gender-neutral singular until we all agree on something better, dammit.)
This time out we’ve been graced with a post on Thina Sizwe, a South African freedom song [click to continue…]
by Lawrence Bush on April 9, 2012
The last of 1,698 lunchtime concerts organized by Myra Hess in London’s National Gallery during the Nazi blitz was played on this date in 1946. Because theaters, concert halls, and cinemas were all blacked out during the long months of air raids, Myra Hess, a well-known concert pianist, expressed concern about the mental health of her fellow Londoners to Kenneth Clark, director of the Gallery. They inaugurated the daytime concerts on October 10, 1939, and Hess herself played in 150 of them. She had made her début in 1907, at age 17, and created a lifelong partnership as a piano duo with Irene Scharrer, whom she met in school. The success of the National Gallery concerts brought her international fame, and Arturo Toscanini invited her to perform a Beethoven concerto with his orchestra during her first postwar tour of America. Hess (1890-1965) was named a Dame of the British Empire in 1941. To see and hear her play a Beethoven piece, click here.
“Her youthful determination to make her own way, her defiance of taboos like smoking in public, and her subsequent zest for Rabelaisian stories and vulgar jokes may be viewed as varied forms of rebellion against hypocrisy and the stultifying atmosphere characteristic of Victorian parlours.” —Marian C. McKenna, biographer
by Lawrence Bush on March 28, 2012
Albert Von Tilzer (Elias Gumm), a Tin Pan Alley songster who in 1908 wrote the music for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” was born in Indianapolis on this date in 1878. He and three brothers, including songwriter Harry Von Tilzer, were all very active in the music industry (“Tilzer” was their mother’s maiden name.) The lyrics for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” were written by Jack Norworth, a successful vaudevillian, on a scrap of paper in fifteen minutes while he was riding the subway. (Norworth, not Jewish, was married to Nora Bayer, a famous Jewish vaudeville performer, with whom he wrote “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” among numerous other show tunes.) The baseball song is narrated by a woman named Katie Casey, whose beau wants to bring her to a show, but she prefers the national pastime. In an updated version that Norworth published in 1927, “Katie Casey” became “Nelly Kelly.” Albert Von Tilzer, meanwhile, composed several Broadway scores and also contributed songs to films in the 1920s and ’30s.
“Nelly Kelly was sure some fan,
She would root just like any man,
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along, good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Nelly Kelly knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song . . .” —”Take Me Out to the Ball Game”
by Lawrence Bush on March 22, 2012
Israeli folk-rock musician Asaf Avidan was born in Jerusalem on this date in 1980. Avidan is founder and leader of Asaf Avidan and the Mojos, a band that released its first of three albums, The Reckoning, in 2007 and has toured with Robert Plant, Ben Harper, and Lou Reed, among others. Avidan has simultaneously pursued a solo career and has toured with Bob Dylan, whose song, “In My Time of Dying,” you can see him cover by clicking here. His vocal style recalls Janis Joplin and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin); he sings in English most of the time and is fast developing an international following. His most recent album, Asaf Avidan – In a Box, consists of 30 songs recorded in 48 hours, without overdubs.
“[W]e still produce from A-Z all our albums, with our graphics, we give them [Sony Columbia] a product. They cannot touch anything. We record in Israel. Everything is done here. Not because of some patriotic thing but because it’s our home, and we can communicate better with the people here.” —Asaf Avidan
