Day #3 - A Song That Reminds You of Summer
Aug. 6th, 2020 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatOff the top of my head Summertime from George Gershwin's American Opera - "Porgy and Bess". (Which is actually my favorite Opera - well the only Opera that I like, I don't tend to like Opera. It's among the few music styles that doesn't quite work for me.)
This has an interesting history for me - which most songs don't, in that it makes me think of my friend, Richard Walker. He died in 1990 of leukemia. We were very close in college. We met doing coffee house - he'd sing, and I read poetry. We were very popular performers. And I also shared the stage with him - when I ended up getting cast in my first and only musical performance. They cast everyone who auditioned. It should be noted that I can't sing. And while I can dance - I can't do it in orchestration with others. So lip-synched my way through it, and was put in the back. (I'd auditioned for a lark - and in the hopes that I would not be cast. My Modern Dance Instructor talked us into doing it.) Anyhow, long story short - the first time I ever heard Gershwin's magical Summertime - was when Richard and another woman sang it, while I lip-synched in the chorus. Richard also sung "It Ain't Necessarily So". (Everyone in the cast but Richard and the other woman was white, Richard and the other woman were black.)
The song is sung by a down on her luck fisherman's wife in the Carolinas during the turn of the century. The song is in of itself a lie - a song of hope in the midst of despair. So I find it fitting for these lazy days in summer that share more than a little in common with those by-gone days of lore.
The version I chose, and there are many - is by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, because Armstrong's voice reminds me of Richard Walker's. (Richard was better looking and I miss him still.) I did however flirt with Nina Simon's take on the song. But I'm saving Nina for another song, much much later in the program.
This has an interesting history for me - which most songs don't, in that it makes me think of my friend, Richard Walker. He died in 1990 of leukemia. We were very close in college. We met doing coffee house - he'd sing, and I read poetry. We were very popular performers. And I also shared the stage with him - when I ended up getting cast in my first and only musical performance. They cast everyone who auditioned. It should be noted that I can't sing. And while I can dance - I can't do it in orchestration with others. So lip-synched my way through it, and was put in the back. (I'd auditioned for a lark - and in the hopes that I would not be cast. My Modern Dance Instructor talked us into doing it.) Anyhow, long story short - the first time I ever heard Gershwin's magical Summertime - was when Richard and another woman sang it, while I lip-synched in the chorus. Richard also sung "It Ain't Necessarily So". (Everyone in the cast but Richard and the other woman was white, Richard and the other woman were black.)
The song is sung by a down on her luck fisherman's wife in the Carolinas during the turn of the century. The song is in of itself a lie - a song of hope in the midst of despair. So I find it fitting for these lazy days in summer that share more than a little in common with those by-gone days of lore.
The version I chose, and there are many - is by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, because Armstrong's voice reminds me of Richard Walker's. (Richard was better looking and I miss him still.) I did however flirt with Nina Simon's take on the song. But I'm saving Nina for another song, much much later in the program.
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Date: 2020-08-07 03:18 am (UTC)A bit of woozy, psychedelic summertime pop from XTC:
https://youtu.be/HRWavflyBXk
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Date: 2020-08-07 08:09 am (UTC)~sigh~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy88-5pc7c8
Good times.
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Date: 2020-08-09 03:02 am (UTC)