Bluesinger's Musical Ramblings

[Bodger]

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I think i may have the knack ?

[Bodger]

[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14C7A7V6q8k[/BBvideo]
Bradders, another nice trumpet player, with some great backing

[Bodger]

[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgVm4NLMBcI[/BBvideo]
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Two versions take your pick, i love "the first lady of Song"

[Bradders Bluesinger]

Thankyou Mr B....What treats , especially The Duke and Ella ....
...and I love the sound of a trumpet with a mute..Ta !

[catgate]

Good as she was, I think she had a serious rival for top spot in Maxine Sullivan. Maxine was much less well known but in my opinion had as much ability as Ella.

[Bradders Bluesinger]

Thankyou Cat , I don't think I've come across Maxine Sullivan ....but will do a bit of digging !
(I'm not very well up on Jazz and Swing etc , and it's lovely to be able to learn more , now that YouTube and Spotify are so freely available)
Did see Lionel Hampton in Geneva in 1969/70, though....long story !

[Stanley]

Duke Ellington.... In the 1980s I went to a concert in Montreal to hear the band but of course it was his son and I wasn't impressed until they wheeled a bloke on in a chair. He was an original member of the band and played the trumpet. Brought the house down, he was streets better than the reconstituted band.

[catgate]

Thankyou Cat , I don't think I've come across Maxine Sullivan ....but will do a bit of digging !
(I'm not very well up on Jazz and Swing etc , and it's lovely to be able to learn more , now that YouTube and Spotify are so freely available)
Did see Lionel Hampton in Geneva in 1969/70, though....long story !

Ah! LIonel Hampton.
I got smitten in my teens by the Benny Goodman quartet. Or more precisely the combination of Benny Goodman's clarinet and Lionel Hampton's "vibes". There is little in the world of swing to compare with these two at their best. They seem to be controlled by just one brain.
I had a good number of Benny Goodman 78s until one night in 1948, coming home from a dance at a local club, where I taken my records, I was given a lift home in an old Ford van. Another passenger sat on my records!!!

[Tripps]

Maxine Sullivan - Having never ever heard of her, I thought you had made her up at first, but no - thanks to the miracle of Spotify, I am listening to her from 1938 - 1940 as I type. Very mellow, a bit like Cleo Laine?

[catgate]

Maxine disappeared from view some time in the fifties (I think). Then she reappeared in her eightieth year and did a grand tour.
I remember seeing a wonderful TV programme at the time her tour was in tha UK.
Absolutely marvellous for an eighty year old.
Here is a link to part of Maxine's last tour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsfLnY2cJlA&

[Bodger]

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[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSX-oidnLQE[/BBvideo]

[catgate]

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[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSX-oidnLQE[/BBvideo]

Quite delightful, bodger.
I wonder if Britney Spears and Madonna will delight and be hald in similar esteem in another seventy tears?

[Stanley]

Did anyone listen to Soul Music on R4 at 11:30 yesterday. Told the story of Gresford, written by a miner after the disaster of September 1934. Had me in tears.....

[catgate]

Miram Makeba was an unforgetable singist of the 50s. Nice voice and certainly quirky. The following was just one of her party pieces:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mwh9z58iAU

[Bodger]

Bradders , did you see the news report regarding the upsurge in live folk music etc.
Who rembers Yma Sumac ?, no clicks, but a wide range
[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T5i08i3 ... re=related[/BBvideo]
This should be compulsary viewing for todays pop group drummers
[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ5B7yqD ... re=related[/BBvideo]

[catgate]

Yma Sumac never lit my fire. She was more of a curiosity than a singer to me.
As to the drummers..well a friend of mine, refering to Gene Krupa, said, "It sounds like someone building a shed". Although they are essential in all music they have never struck me as being a solo instrument.
As a young teenager I had a small drum kit. I can not remember where it came from but I know my parents were quite chuffed when it went. At a much younger age I used to play on the linoleum.

[catgate]

Incidentally does this chap still work Barnoldswick Town Hall Square ?:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXMuWi0dUBc

[Bodger]

A Dublin lass has great talent
[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwmhMzuBA2Y[/BBvideo]
another style, by the way the guitar players not bad !

[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhC-V-sj ... re=related[/BBvideo]
enjoy, sorry for pushing a Irish lass
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[Bradders Bluesinger]

Old Bradders has been away for a few days......Looks like I've got plenty af catching up to do .....Lovely !

[EileenDavid]

Hello Bradders

Just thought I'd let you know we attended the Colne Blues festival some years ago with our friends from Heysham. Steve played there in a band called Section.

Then we had the most amazing fish and chips.

Eileen

[Bradders Bluesinger]

Last time I was at Colne Blues Festival , Franny Ewbank (boxer's halfbrother) , went on before me in Max's Cafe and sang 75% of my setlist (by coincedence) wit a six piece band .....I followed with an acoustic guitar ,winging it with hurriedly thought-up alternative stuff ...Awkward! (happily nobody twigged).

I saw Emelda May (Great presence as a singer) in Nottingham 2/3 years ago but her Trumpeter was DIRE !..... Kept hitting wrong notes very loadly....
It didn't help that I was with a mate who's late father was a nationally respected Brass Band Conductor (name of Doughty ?)
He was wincing all night , and he wasn't alone .
I think her husband was her guitarist , and he was excellent !

[Bradders Bluesinger]

I've been thinking about performers who regularly hit bum notes or sing flat .......
Somehow it doesn't seem to matter to some listeners , and hasn't stopped a good few artists becoming very successful ...
Here are few who regularily set my teeth on edge .It's not an exhaustive list , by any means , and is not intended to inflame fans of those named (I like them all myself , with one exception**)
Joan Armatrading
Bob Dylan
Steve Earle
Sonny (on "I got You Babe")
Frank Sinatra
Morrissey **
(..and who played that dreadful ocarina on " Wild Thing " by the Troggs ?....Aaaaagh!)

.....Please add more , as you think of them

[Stanley]

Add Maria Callas to that list.....

[Bodger]

I'm a strong believer that very few of todays "singers" could sing the scales we were taught at school, i think the Beatles had a lot to answer for, they were crap live, it was George Mitchell ? the arranger that made them nearly listenable, what was the tv programme many years ago that took people with no talent and tried to make them stars, one girl, can't think of her name went on to become popular via voice enhancing machines and the use of electronics to enable her to sound a bit musical, over here in Ireland the use of electronics is frowned upon in traditional music other than microphone amplification to make youself heard over the clinking of drinking glasses, though normally there is a silence like a rugby penalty in Thomond Park for the artiste. by the way i have some Beatles tunes, but performed by talented performers, ie Count Basie, Sassy Vaughan, etc.

[Bradders Bluesinger]

Just to show "there's no hard feelings" about "flat singers" ....Here's a clip of Steve Earle singing a wonderfully penned song by the late Townes Van Zandt ..
It's full of allusion to what really happened ...no need to spell it out ...Brilliant ![BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMCJJkIR ... re=related[/BBvideo]

Has any one any other examples of this sort of thing ?

PS CAT ..I love that description of Krupa "Building a shed" !.....
Might have to steal it ! sorry