Only the Good Die Young-Part VIII

Sam Cooke

On this eve of the eve of All Hallow's Eve, we turn to a story that is stranger than fiction. That is, the circumstances surrounding the death of singer Sam Cooke. But before we get into the details, first a commercial: Don't forget to get your tickets for Orchestra Kentucky's Rock 'n Roll Heaven, next Friday and Saturday, November 5th and 6th, 8:00 p.m. at Van Meter Hall in Bowling Green. For tickets, call (270) 846-2426 or go online.

Samuel Cook was born on January 22, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, one of eight children of a Baptist minister. Starting in gospel music, Cooke (who later added the "e"), became known as the King of Soul. His music led to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and James Brown.


Cooke had 29 top-40 hits in the U.S. between 1957 and 1964, including You Send Me, Chain Gang, Wonderful World, Another Saturday Night and Cupid. Cooke was among the first black performers to found both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his career as a singer-composer. He also took an active part in the American Civil Rights Movement.

On December 11, 1964, Cooke was shot dead by the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California at the age of 33. At the time, the courts ruled that Cooke was drunk and distressed, and the manager killed Cooke in what was later ruled a justifiable homicide. Since that time, the circumstances of his death have been widely questioned.

Bertha Franklin, manager of the motel, told police that she shot and killed Cooke in self-defense because he had threatened her. Police found Cooke's body in Franklin's apartment-office, clad only in a sports jacket and shoes, but no shirt, pants or underwear. The shooting was ultimately ruled a justifiable homicide. However, the circumstances surrounding his death are still in dispute.

Cooke had checked into the Hacienda Motel early in the evening of December 11. Franklin said that Cooke broke into her office in a rage, wearing only a shoe and sports coat. He demanded to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. When Franklin said that she didn't know, Cooke grabbed her and again demanded to know her whereabouts. Franklin and Cooke struggled and fell to the floor. Franklin got up to get her gun, which she then fired at Cooke. Franklin claimed that it was in self defense because she feared for her life. She shot Cooke once in the torso. Cooke apparently said, "Lady, you shot me," then charged at her one last time. Franklin beat him over the head with a broomstick before he fell dead of the gunshot wound.

Apparently, Franklin and the motel owner were on the telephone when Cooke entered the office. The owner overheard the conflict and gunshot and called the police.

A coroner's inquest determined that the woman who accompanied Cooke to the motel, Elisa Boyer, had also called the police shortly before the motel owner. She called from a telephone booth near the motel and claimed that she had just escaped being kidnapped and raped. She claimed she had met Cooke at a nightclub and asked him to take her home. Instead, he took her against her will to the motel, where he tried to rape her. When Cooke went to the bathroom, she grabbed up her clothes and, accidentally, his clothes and fled. Some believe she willingly went to the motel, as she was later arrested for prostitution. It is possible that she took Cooke's clothing to rob him.

The inquest determined that Cooke was drunk at the time, which would explain his behavior. Because Franklin and Boyer had passed lie detector tests, the jury accepted Franklin's version of the incident and declared the shooting justifiable homicide.


Others believe that Cooke's death was part of a murder conspiracy. For example, in her autobiography, singer Etta James claimed that Cooke's head was so badly beaten that it was nearly separated from his shoulders, that his hands were crushed, and his nose mangled. This was all based on her viewing of his body at the funeral home.


Whatever the cause of death, it was certainly tragic, robbing the world of one of the greatest soul singers of all time.

Watch Cooke sing You Send Me on an early TV show with Dick Clark, probably American Bandstand.

Only the Good Die Young-Part VII

Bill Haley

How would you like to have an asteroid named in your honor? Not a star, like the ones you can buy for your loved ones, but a real asteroid? That's exactly how the International Astronomical Union marked the 25th anniversary of Bill Hailey's death.

William John Clifton Haley was not always such a notable person. He was born on July 6, 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan. During the depression, his father moved the family from the severely depressed Detroit area, to Boothwyn, Pennsylvania.

Bill grew up in a musical family. His father played the banjo and his mother was a classically-trained pianist. The notes accompanying the 1956 album Rock Around the Clock, described the beginnings of his career: "Bill got his first professional job at the age of 13, playing and entertaining at an auction for the fee of $1 a night. Very soon after this he formed a group of equally enthusiastic youngsters and managed to get quite a few local bookings for his band. When Bill Haley was fifteen [c.1940] he left home with his guitar and very little else and set out on the hard road to fame and fortune. The next few years, continuing this story in a fairy-tale manner, were hard and poverty stricken, but cramful of useful experience. Apart from learning how to exist on one meal a day and other artistic exercises, he worked at an open-air park show, sang and yodelled with any band that would have him and worked with a traveling medicine show. Eventually he got a job with a popular group known as the Down Homers while they were in Hartford, Connecticut. Soon after this he decided, as all successful people must decide at some time or another, to be his own boss again - and he has been that ever since. For six years Bill Haley was a musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania, and led his own band all through this period. It was then known as Bill Haley's Saddlemen, indicating their definite leaning toward the tough Western style. They continued playing in clubs as well as over the radio around Philadelphia, and in 1951 made their first recordings."


In 1952, The Saddlemen were renamed Bill Haley with Haley's Comets. Of course, the name was inspired by Halley's Comet, which is commonly mispronounced. In 1953, their recording of Crazy Man Crazy became the first rock 'n roll song to hit the charts. Soon after, the band became Bill Haley & His Comets.

In 1953, the song Rock Around the Clock was written for Haley. He finally recorded it on April 12, 1954. It stayed on the charts only one week. However, Haley had a major hit with Shake, Rattle and Roll, which eventually sold a million copies.

Haley was an important force in white audiences accepting rock 'n roll, which was considered an underground genre. As fate would have it, Rock Around the Clock was used as the opening music for Glenn Ford's 1955 film, Blackboard Jungle. It hit the top of the charts and stayed there for eight weeks, beginning the rock 'n roll era. The song earned Haley the title, "Father of Rock and Roll".
Haley went on to have hits through the '50s, including See You Later, Alligator. His fame soon faded in America, when Elvis hit the charts. However, his fame continued in Latin America, Mexico and Europe throughout the '60s.

Haley struggled with alcoholism into the '70s. In the fall of 1980, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When the tumor worsened, he retired from show business and died at his home in Harlingen, Texas on February 9, 1981. He was 55 years old.

Watch Bill Haley perform Rock Around the Clock in 1956.

Only the Good Die Young-Part VI

Mama Cass

It's not true. The bit about Mama Cass choking on a ham sandwich and dying is an urban legend. A partially eaten sandwich was found by her body, but no food was found in her windpipe. She simply died of a heart attack, most likely because of her obesity.

Cass Elliot was born on September 19, 1941 in Baltimore, Maryland.  Given the birth name Ellen Naomi Cohen, she adopted the name "Cass" in high school, presumably borrowing it from the actress, Peggy Cass. "Elliot" came later, as a tribute to a friend who had died.  She dropped out of high school and moved to New York City, where she appeared in The Music Man. Her singing career began when she attended American University in Washington, DC.  Folk music was on the rise in the early '60s, influencing Cass to join with others to form various bands throughout the decade.


The name "Mamas and the Papas" came about when John and Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass were watching television, discussing possible group names. The Hells Angels were on a talk show, saying "Now hold on there, Hoss. Some people call our women cheap, but we just call them our Mamas." Apparently, Cass jumped up and said, "I want to be a Mama." The name was born.


Cass's distinctive voice was a big factor in the group's success. Hits like California Dreamin', Monday, Monday, and Dream a Little Dream of Me featured her memorable vocals. The later song was turned into a ballad in 1968. The song was actually written in 1931 as a dance tune. It's ironic that Ozzie Nelson, the father of yesterday's blog subject, was the first to record it.
The Mamas and Papa's last album was released in 1971.

After their breakup, Cass had a successful solo career. Her biggest solo hit was the aforementioned Dream a Little Dream of Me. Although recorded by the Mamas and the Papas, it was also released as part of Cass's first solo album.


In addition to her singing career, Cass often appeared on TV talk shows and variety shows in the '70s, including The Julie Andrews Hour, The Mike Douglas Show, The Andy Williams Show, Hollywood Squares, The Carol Burnett Show and The Tonight Show, which she guest hosted.


Cass's personal story is a sad one. She was married twice. The first time was to help a band mate avoid the Vietnam War. The second marriage ended in divorce after a few months. She had one daughter by a man whose name has never been disclosed.


In 1974, Cass was performing two weeks of sold-out concerts at the London Palladium. On July 28th, after speaking with band mate Michelle Phillips, Cass went to bed and died in her sleep at the age of 32. It is eerie to note that the London flat in which she died, on loan from singer Harry Nilsson, was also the location of Who drummer Keith Moon's death, four years later.


Watch Cass sing Dream a Little Dream of Me on the Smothers Brothers Show.

Only the Good Die Young-Part V

Ricky Nelson

Eric Hilliard Nelson was born into show business on May 8, 1940 in Teaneck, New Jersey. Not exactly Hollywood. But that would come later.

Eric, who went by Ricky, was the second son of Big Band leader Ozzie Nelson and Big Band vocalist Harriet Hilliard Nelson. The family moved to Hollywood when Ricky's parents were hired to appear on Red Skelton's The Raleigh Cigarette Hour (those were the good ole days, when an entire series encouraged smoking).

As a child, Ricky was described as "an odd little kid", likable, shy, introspective, mysterious and inscrutable. He suffered from severe asthma, sleeping with a vaporizer each night.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet radio show premiered on Sunday, October 8, 1944. 1952 brought the film Here Come the Nelsons, which led to the television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which first aired on October 3, 1952. It ran until September 3, 1966, becoming one of the longest running television sitcoms in history.

Ricky attended Hollywood High School. His dad wanted Ricky to attend college, but since he was already making well over $100,000 a year, he saw no reason to attend.

Ricky's music career began with the clarinet and drums in this early teen years. He learned basic guitar chords and tried to play the guitar solos in Carl Perkins hit, Blue Suede Shoes.

To impress a friend, with his dad's help, he got a one-record deal with Verve Records, recording Fats Domino's I'm Walkin', A Teenager's Romance, and You're My One and Only Love in 1957. He made his rock 'n roll debut on the Nelson's television show, lip syncing I'm Walkin'  on April 10, 1957. He also played a free lunch hour assembly at a Los Angeles high school. Two of the records hit the top ten, enabling Ricky to play four state and county fairs in Ohio and Wisconsin.

After signing a more favorable record deal with Imperial Records, Ricky scored a hit with Be-Bop Baby, which sold over one million copies. His first album hit number one at the end of 1957. His song, Poor Little Fool, hit number one and sold over two million copies.

During 1958 and 1959, Ricky had twelve hits as compared to Elvis' eleven. He used his television show to promote his records, often performing them at the end of an episode. Although Ozzie kept him off of other television shows to protect the Nelson's series, Ricky eventually appeared on Ed Sullivan's show (1967), The Streets of San Francisco (1973) and Saturday Night Live (1979).

From 1957 to 1962, Ricky had thirty Top 40 hits, more than any other artist except Elvis (who had 53) and Pat Boone (who had 38). Ricky's chart-topping career came to an end with the British Invasion.

In the mid-1960s, Ricky moved to country music, becoming a pioneer in the country-rock genre. He influenced the California sound, including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles. He did not reach the Top 40 again until 1970, with She Belongs to Me.

In 1972, Ricky reached the Top 40 for the last time with Garden Party, a song he wrote after a Madison Square Garden audience booed him when he played his new songs instead of the old hits. Some say the crowd booed because policemen tried to remove drunk fans in an upper balcony. However, he was booed when he performed Honky Tonk Woman (a Rolling Stones hit). He redeemed himself and got a standing ovation with Travelin' Man. Garden Party reached number six and was certified a gold single. After a short surge in popularity, Nelson became an attraction at theme parks, like Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland.

Nelson was a regular marijuana and cocaine user. He had a tremendous sexual appetite, estimating that he had slept with thousands of women. Drug use, a failed career, and an exorbitant life style, lead to an acrimonious divorce between Ricky and his wife. He fathered an illegitimate boy with one of several women he later dated.

Ricky hated to fly, but he refused to travel by bus. Despite his fears, he bought a 1940s plane which had belonged to Jerry Lee Lewis. The day after Christmas 1985, Ricky and his band left on the plane for a three-stop tour of the Southern United States. Following shows in Florida and Alabama, the group took off for a New Year's Eve show in Dallas. The plane crashed northeast of Dallas at 5:14 p.m. on December 31, 1985. Nelson, his fiancee Helen Blair, his band, and road manager/soundman were all killed. The pilots escaped the burning plane through the cockpit windows. The NTSB conducted a year-long investigation and concluded that the crash was probably due to mechanical problems. The pilots attempted to land the plane in a field after the cabin filled with smoke. The fire probably started when the pilots tried to use the cabin heaters, which were known to be defective on that type of plane.

Ricky Nelson was 45 years old at the time of his death.

Watch a video of Ricky performing Garden Party four months before his death.

Only the Good Die Young-Part IV



Harry Chapin

 My first memory of Harry Chapin was when he appeared on the Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson. It must have been in the early '70s. I seem to remember him singing Dance Band on the Titanic, which I thought was a hoot (in a morbid sort of way). Here are the lyrics to the chorus:

"Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me"

Chapin sang about the tragedies of life (e.g., Cats in the Cradle). His life also ended tragically. But before we get to how he died, let's talk a bit about how he lived.

Chapin was born on December 7, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, who divorced his mother when Harry was eight, played drums for Big Band acts, including Woody Herman. Harry's first musical experience was singing in the Brooklyn Boys choir, where he met his future bass player and backing vocalist, John Wallace. He and his two brothers put together a band, which their dad occasionally joined as drummer.

After graduation, Chapin briefly attended the United States Air Force Academy and Cornell University, but never completed a degree program from either institution. He initially wanted to be a documentary film maker, even making a film that was nominated for an Academy Award. Instead of continuing in this vein, he started playing nightclubs in New York City. After an initial failed album, Harry's second album was a success, thanks to the song Taxi. A Boston DJ picked up the single and helped push the song to number 24 on the charts.

In 1966, Chapin met his future wife, Sandra, who had called him, asking for music lessons. They had a boy and a girl together, and he was stepfather to Sandra's two children from a previous marriage.

Harry's fourth album brought his only number one hit, Cats in the Cradle. The song was based on his wife's poem, written about her first husband's relationship with his father. The song made Harry a millionaire.

In the mid '70s, Chapin focused on raising money to combat hunger in the U.S., and other charitable causes. Many of his concerts were benefit performances and his concert merchandise receipts were used to support an organization he co-founded, called World Hunger Year. It is estimated that he donated a third of his concert receipts to charitable causes, sometimes appearing alone to reduce costs. His wife is quoted as saying, "only with slight exaggeration" — that "Harry was supporting 17 relatives, 14 associations, seven foundations and 82 charities. Harry wasn't interested in saving money. He always said, 'Money is for people,' so he gave it away." Despite his success as a musician, he left little money, making it difficult to maintain the causes for which he raised more than $3 million in the last six years of his life. The Harry Chapin Foundation was the result. As an orchestra conductor, it is heartwarming to note that he served on the board of the Long Island Philharmonic.

Just after noon on Thursday, July 16, 1981, Chapin was driving about 65 mph in the left lane of the Long Island Expressway. He was on his way to perform a free concert. Suddenly, he put on his emergency flashers and slowed to about 15 mph. He then veered into the center lane, nearly colliding with a car, swerved left, then to the right again, ending up directly in the path of a semi truck, which rammed the rear of Chapin's Volkswagen Rabbit. The collision ruptured the fuel tank when the semi climbed up the back of the car.

The truck driver and a passerby got Chapin out of the burning car through a window, just before the car was completely engulfed in flames. Chapin was taken by helicopter to a hospital, where doctors were unable to revive him. Officials said that Chapin died of a cardiac arrest. It was impossible for them to determine if it occurred before or after the accident. Chapin's wife won $12 million because of the negligence of the truck driver. Chapin was 38 years old.

Chapin's tombstone epitaph is taken from his song, I Wonder What Would Happen to this World:

Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth
I wonder what would happen
to this world

Harry Chapin did prove that one man's life can make a difference. He gave his time, talent, and treasure...and that's all any of us can do.

Watch Chapin perform Cats in the Cradle.

Only the Good Die Young-Part III

Bobby Darin

It's easy to understand why Bobby Darin adopted a stage name. I mean, who wants to go through life as Walden Robert Perciville Cassotto?

Orchestra Kentucky will perform Darin's big hit, Beyond the Sea, at its November 5th and 6th concerts, Rock 'n Roll Heaven. Darin's story is one of the more tragic ones. In fact, it is so interesting, it was the basis of the film Beyond the Sea, starring Kevin Spacey.

Like yesterday's blog subject Laura Nyro, Darin was born in the Bronx. Darin was born on May 14, 1936 to a poor, working class family. The person whom he thought was his father died in jail just months before Darin was born. He never learned the true identity of his father. The person who died in jail was actually his grandfather. He was raised by his mother and sister until his sister married and moved out of the house. When he was an adult, Darin learned that his sister (who was 17 years older than he) was actually his mother and the person he thought was his mother was actually his grandmother. Whew!

Darin was sickly as a child, struggling with multiple bouts of rheumatic fever. The disease seriously weakened his heart. He once overheard a doctor tell his mother that Darin would be lucky to live to the age of 16. With that knowledge hanging over his head, Darin worked hard to use his talents to make something of what he thought would be a short life. By the time he was a teenager, he could play piano, drums, guitar, harmonica and xylophone.

An outstanding student, Darin graduated from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and went on to attend Hunter College on a scholarship. Wanting a career in the New York theater, he dropped out of college to play small nightclubs around the city with a musical combo. In the resort area of the Catskill Mountains, he was both a busboy and an entertainer. For the most part teenage Bobby was a comedy drummer and an ambitious but unpolished vocalist.

As was common with first-generation Americans at the time, he changed his Italian surname to one that sounded less ethnic. He chose the name "Bobby" because he had been called that as a child. He allegedly chose Darin because he had seen a malfunctioning electrical sign at a Chinese restaurant reading "DARIN DUCK" rather than "MANDARIN DUCK", and he thought "Darin" looked good. Later, he said that the name was randomly picked out of the telephone book, either by himself or by his publicist. It has also been suggested that he amended the word "daring" to suit his ambitions. None of these stories has been verified.

What really moved things along for Darin was his songwriting partnership, formed in 1955, with fellow Bronx Science student. In 1956 his agent negotiated a contract for him with Decca Records. Introduced to the up-and-coming singer Connie Francis, Darin wrote several songs for her. He left Decca to work for Atlantic Records, where he wrote and arranged music for himself and others. His career took off when he wrote and recorded Splish Splash, which sold more than a million copies. It was written when a DJ bet Darin he could not write a song, starting with the words "Splish Splash, I was takin' a bath."
Darin's 1959 hit Dream Love became a multi-million seller. His next hit was Mack the Knife, a song than went to number one for nine weeks, sold two million copies, and won the Grammy for record of the year for 1960. He followed this hit with Beyond the Sea, an English-language version of a French hit, La Mer. These two hits helped Darin appear as a headliner at top Vegas casison and to set attendance records at the Copacabana nightclub in New York

In addition to music, Darin became a motion picture actor. His first major film, a romantic comedy, entitled Come September, starred Darin and 16-year-old actress Sandra Dee. They fell in love and were married in 1960. The couple had one son, Dodd Mitchell Darin (born 1961) and later divorced in 1967. In 1963, Darin was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a shell-shocked soldier in Captain Newman, M.D.
As the '60s progressed, Darin's musical sytle became more folksy. 1966 brought the hit If I Were a Carpenter and 1969, Simple Song of Freedom. At the beginning of the '70s, he continued to act and to record, including several albums with Motown Records and a couple of films. In January 1971, he underwent his first heart surgery in an attempt to correct some of the heart damage he had lived with since childhood. He spent most of the year recovering from the surgery. Darin married Andrea Yeager in June 1973. He made TV guest appearances and also remained a top draw at Las Vegas, where, owing to his poor health, he was often administered oxygen after his performances.

In 1973, Darin's ill health took a turn for the worse. After failing to take medication (prescribed to protect his heart) before a dental visit, he developed blood poisoning. This weakened his body and badly affected one of his heart valves. On December 11, Darin entered Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for surgery to repair the two artificial heart valves he received in the previous 1971 operation. On December 19, the surgery began. A five-man surgical team worked for over six hours to repair his damaged heart. Although the surgery was initially successful, Darin died minutes afterward in the recovery room without regaining consciousness. The date was December 20, 1973. Darin was 37.

(Information taken from www.wikipedia.com)

Watch a film clip from the 2004 bioepic Beyond the Sea. Kevin Spacey sings the title track.

Now watch Bobby Darin sing the song himself.

Only the Good Die Young-Part II

Laura Nyro

Wedding Bell Blues, Stoned Soul Picnic, Save the Country, And When I Die, Eli's Coming, Stoney End...these are the songs of composer Laura Nyro. Most people have never heard of her, but they certainly know these hit songs. One of them will be performed at Orchestra Kentucky's Rock 'n Roll Heaven concerts on Friday and Saturday evening, November 5th and 6th. The concert features "record copies" of songs by pop artists who died in the prime of life.

Laura Nyro was one songwriter who died too young. The 5th Dimension, Barbra Streisand and Blood, Sweat & Tears all benefited from her gifts. I wonder what other songs might have been recorded, had Nyro lived to a reasonable age?

Nyro was born Laura Nigro in the Bronx. Here dad was a piano tuner and jazz trumpet player. Her mom was a bookkeeper. Laura taught herself piano as a child. She loved poetry and her mother's recordings of opera singer Leontyne Price, blues singer Billie Holiday, and the works of classical composers like Ravel and Debussy. Laura wrote her first songs at eight years old. She attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art.

While in high school, Laura and friends sang in subway stations and on street corners. Her favorite musicians were jazz great John Coltrane, Pete Seeger, Curtis Mayfield, Van Morrison, The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas and the Shirelles.

Laura's dad's work brought him into contact with a record executive who became Laura's first manager. She sold her first song to Peter, Paul and Mary for $5,000. She recorded her first album at eighteen, with songs on the disc providing material for other artists like The 5th Dimension. It was at this time that she adopted the name, Nyro, which she pronounced Nee-ro.

When Blood, Sweat & Tears lost their lead singer, Nero considered singing with the band. Her new manager, David Geffen, discouraged her. Nevertheless, the band recorded her song, And When I Die.

After recording her fourth album, she married a carpenter, announcing her retirement from the music business at age 24. By 1976, her marriage had ended and she embarked on a four-month tour. This resulted in a live album. In the early '80s, Nyro began living with a painter, who became her companion to the end of her life.

The late '70s and '80s brought a new child, more touring, and more recordings. Her last recording was in 1993. The album brought offers to compose for film and to appear on TV talk shows. She turned them all down.

She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1996, dying of the disease in Danbury, Connecticut on April 8, 1997 at the age of 49. Her mother died of the same disease at the same age.

Watch a "bootleg" recording of Nyro singing And When I Die live.

Compare Blood, Sweat & Tears' cover of the same song in this 1972 live performance.

Only the Good Die Young-Part I

Jim Morrison

Orchestra Kentucky will present Rock 'n Roll Heaven on Friday and Saturday night, November 5th & 6th. The concert features music written and/or recorded by pop/rock artists who died prematurely. The arbitrary age we used is 60. As I approach it, it seems younger every day!

Today, we begin with our first artist, Jim Morrison of the '60s rock band The Doors.

James Douglas Morrison was born on December 8, 1943 in Melbourne, Florida. He died on July 3, 1971 in Paris, France at the age of 27.

The following account of his death is from wikipedia.com:

"Morrison flew to Paris in March 1971, took up residence in a rented apartment, and went for long walks through the city, admiring the city's architecture. During that time, Morrison shaved his beard and lost some of the weight he had gained in the previous months. In Paris, Morrison had two poetry sessions one which was professional and recorded various poems, many of which were used for the American Prayer album. The last studio recording was with two American street musicians — a session dismissed by Manzarek as 'drunken gibberish'. The session included a version of a song-in-progress, Orange County Suite, which can be heard on the bootleg The Lost Paris Tapes.

"Morrison died on July 3, 1971. In the official account of his death, he was found in a Paris apartment bathtub by [Pamela] Courson [his long-time companion]. Pursuant to French law, no autopsy was performed because the medical examiner claimed to have found no evidence of foul play. The absence of an official autopsy has left many questions regarding Morrison's cause of death.

"In Wonderland Avenue, Danny Sugerman discussed his encounter with Courson after she returned to the U.S. According to Sugerman's account, Courson stated that Morrison had died of a heroin overdose, having inhaled what he believed to be cocaine. Sugerman added that Courson had given numerous contradictory versions of Morrison's death, at times saying that she had killed Morrison, or that his death was her fault. Courson's story of Morrison's unintentional ingestion of heroin, followed by accidental overdose, is supported by the confession of Alain Ronay, who has written that Morrison died of a hemorrhage after snorting Courson's heroin, and that Courson nodded off, leaving Morrison bleeding to death instead of phoning for medical help.

"Ronay confessed in an article in Paris-Match that he then helped cover up the circumstances of Morrison's death. In the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman write that Ronay and Agnès Varda say Courson lied to the police who responded at the death scene, and later in her deposition, telling them Morrison never took drugs.

"In the epilogue to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins says that 20 years after Morrison's death, Ronay and Varda broke silence and gave this account: They arrived at the house shortly after Morrison's death and Courson said that she and Morrison had taken heroin after a night of drinking. Morrison had been coughing badly, had gone to take a bath, and vomited blood. Courson said that he appeared to recover and that she then went to sleep. When she awoke sometime later Morrison was unresponsive, and so she called for medical assistance.

"Courson herself died of a heroin overdose three years later. Like Morrison, she was 27 years old at the time of her death.

"However, in the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman also claim that Morrison had asthma and was suffering from a respiratory condition involving a chronic cough and throwing up blood on the night of his death. This theory is partially supported in The Doors (written by the remaining members of the band) in which they claim Morrison had been coughing up blood for nearly two months in Paris. However, none of the members of the Doors were in Paris with Morrison in the months before his death.

"In the first version of No One Here Gets Out Alive published in 1980, Sugerman and Hopkins gave some credence to the rumor that Morrison may not have died at all, calling the fake death theory 'not as far-fetched as it might seem'. This theory led to considerable distress for Morrison's loved ones over the years, notably when fans would stalk them, searching for evidence of Morrison's whereabouts. In 1995 a new epilogue was added to Sugerman and Hopkins' book, giving new facts about Morrison's death and discounting the fake death theory, saying 'As time passed, some of Jim and Pamela [Courson]'s friends began to talk about what they knew, and although everything they said pointed irrefutably to Jim's demise, there remained and probably always will be those who refuse to believe that Jim is dead and those who will not allow him to rest in peace.'

"Jim Morrison's grave at Père-Lachaise. In a July 2007 newspaper interview, a self-described close friend of Morrison's, Sam Bernett, resurrected an old rumor and announced that Morrison actually died of a heroin overdose in the Rock 'n' Roll Circus nightclub, on the Left Bank in Paris. Bernett claims that Morrison came to the club to buy heroin for Courson then did some himself and died in the bathroom. Bernett alleges that Morrison was then moved back to the rue Beautreillis apartment and dumped in the bathtub by the same two drug dealers from whom Morrison had purchased the heroin. Bernett says those who saw Morrison that night were sworn to secrecy in order to prevent a scandal for the famous club, and that some of the witnesses immediately left the country. However, this is just the latest of many in a long line of old rumors and conspiracy theories surrounding Morrison's death and is less supported by witnesses than are the accounts of Ronay and Courson (cited above).

Morrison's grave site

"Morrison is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, one of the city's most visited tourist attractions. The grave had no official marker until French officials placed a shield over it, which was stolen in 1973. In 1981, Croatian sculptor Mladen Mikulin placed a bust of Morrison and the new gravestone with Morrison's name at the grave to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death; the bust was defaced through the years by cemetery vandals and later stolen in 1988. In the 1990s Morrison's father, George Stephen Morrison, placed a flat stone on the grave. The stone bears the Greek inscription: ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ, literally meaning 'according to his own daimōn' and usually interpreted as 'true to his own spirit'. Mikulin later made two more Morrison portraits in bronze but is awaiting the license to place a new sculpture on the tomb."

No matter why Morrison died, one thing is certain: the world lost an extremely talented musician.

The Doors' hits include:

1. Hello, I Love You
2. Light My Fire
3. People Are Strange
4. Love Me Two Times
5. Riders On The Storm
6. Break On Through
7. Roadhouse Blues
8. Touch Me
9. L.A. Woman
10. Love Her Madly
11. The Ghost Song
12. The End

Watch a performance of Touch Me from the Smother's Brothers Comedy Hour. Winds and strings surround Morrison.


Tomorrow we turn to the great songwriter, Laura Nyro. Most of you have probably never heard of her. How unfortunate.

Rock 'n Roll Heaven

On Friday and Saturday, November 5th and 6th, Orchestra Kentucky will present Rock 'n Roll Heaven, a concert dedicated to the music of those pop-rock musicians who left us in their prime. Featured will be our very own Rewinders and Retro Singers.

To get you in the mood, here is a "fun" website about artists who died young.  It gives background information on the artist, how they died, and their age at death.

Tomorrow I will begin discussing the particular artists and the music that will be performed at our concerts.

The Grand Finale

Igor Stravinsky

Orchestra Kentucky will conclude the October 25th You Be the Judge! concert with the Berceuse and Finale to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. The orchestra's professional members will be joined by ten amateur musicians, who have been invited to join the orchestra for the concert's finale.

Igor Stravinsky is one of my top ten favorite composers. He composed The Rite of Spring, which is one of my desert island pieces. Why do I love Stravinsky so much? I guess it's the unpredictability and energy in his music. Although I have listened to the Rite hundreds of times, I discover something new every time. So, if I'm on a deserted island, what better piece is there? Monday's concert won't, however, feature the Rite. Instead, Orchestra Kentucky will perform music from Stravinsky's first ballet--The Firebird. This holds a special place in my heart, as it is the first orchestral music I ever conducted. It was 1984 and I was a senior at the University of Louisville in Professor James Livingston's class. It was my final exam. Of course, I was nervous. But what a thrill it was!

Before we get into a discussion of The Firebird, let me give you some background information on Stravinsky.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia (renamed Lomonosov in 1948) on June 17, 1882. He died on April 6, 1971 in New York City. Stravinsky is regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest and most influential composers.

Stravinsky's compositional style changed throughout his career. He became internationally famous through three ballets, commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, the impresario of the Russian Ballets. They were The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Because of its originality, The Rite provoked a riot at its premiere. Music was never the same after that night.

Stravinsky's next phase came in the 1920s. His works from this period used traditional forms, like the concerto grosso, fugue, and symphony. Known as his neoclassic period, the music often paid tribute to earlier masters like Bach, Tchaikovsky, and Pergolesi.

In the 1950s, Stravinsky entered his serial phase. Serial music, or twelve-tone music, is organized by using the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, rather than relying on traditional harmony. Shoenberg was its primary proponent.  But let's turn back to Stravinsky's first period, since that is what concerns us for this concert.

The Firebird (1910), was choreographed by Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor. This ballet "put Stravinsky on the map". Diaghilev, the ballet's commissioner, told the lead dancer, "Mark him well. He is a man on the eve of celebrity." The Russian Ballets (Ballets Russes) premiered the ballet in Paris on June 25, 1910. It was quite successful with critics, who considered the work an "ideal symbiosis between decor, choreography, and music." Its success lead to further collaborations with Diaghilev and the two aforementioned ballets.


Stravinsky created a suite from the ballet, which went through three different permutations. Orchestra Kentucky will play the last two movements of the second version of the suite, completed in 1919. The movements are: (1) Introduction - The Firebird and its dance - The Firebird's variation; (2) The Princesses’ Khorovod (Rondo, round dance); (3) Infernal dance of King Kashchei; (4) Berceuse (Lullaby); (5) Finale.


Stravinsky wrote for the following instruments: 2 Flutes (2nd also plays piccolo); 2 Oboes (2nd also plays English Horn for one measure); 2 Clarinets; 2 Bassoons; 4 Horns; 2 Trumpets; 3 Trombones; Tuba; Timpani; Bass Drum; Tambourine; Cymbals; Triangle; Xylophone; Harp; Pianoforte (also opt. Celesta); Strings.

Watch Stravinsky, himself, conduct the Berceuse and Finale.

Tomorrow I will begin discussing the music played on the orchestra's next Retro Series concert, Rock 'n Roll Heaven.

Join the Chorus Line

As I mentioned yesterday, the next two choices presented to the audience for the October 25th concert, come from the "Great White Way". The audience will vote on whether to hear a medley of songs from The Sound of Music or today's topic, A Chorus Line.

Yesterday, I provided a link to trivia about The Sound of Music as well as the movie trailer for the film. So as not to favor one over the other, I have done the same for today.

Here is a link to A Chorus Line trivia from http://www.imdb.com/.

Watch the original movie trailer from the film.

The Hill is Alive!

The "hill" on the campus of Western Kentucky University may be alive with The Sound of Music, depending on whether or not the audience votes to hear it. On Monday, October 25th, Orchestra Kentucky presents, You Be the Judge!, where the audience will be presented with a series of two choices to vote on.

In this case, it's a medley of songs from The Sound of Music versus a medley of songs from A Chorus Line.

We all know the story of Rodgers & Hammerstein's classic. So, I thought you might enjoy reading some trivia, courtesy of http://www.imdb.com/.  Also, re-live the magic of the film by viewing the original movie trailer.

The Duke, and not the cowboy one, either

Duke Ellington

Next up in our list of candidates for the October 25th You Be the Judge! concert is a medley of hits by Duke Ellington. Arranged by Calvin Custer, the medley includes Don't Get Around Much Anymore; Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me; Sophisticated Lady and It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing).

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born in Washington, DC on April 29,1899 and died in New York City on May 24,1974. Ellington's career spanned more than 50 years and included the musical genres of jazz, blues, gospel, film, popular and classical.

Ellington called his music "American Music" rather than jazz. Much of his success in jazz may be attributed to his writing partner, Billy Strayhorn. Ellington's eloquence and charisma helped to elevate jazz to an accepted art form on par with other genres of music. Seeing himself as a composer and arranger, rather than just a musician, also brought a seriousness to his music.

At seven, Ellington began the piano with Marietta Clinkscales. It was from Ms Clinkscales and other dignified women that Ellington learned manners and elegant living. His friends noticed his graceful manner and dapper way of dressing and gave him the title "Duke".

Duke began to play piano professionally in 1917. His piano style was influenced by stride piano players (a style which evolved from ragtime, where the left hand of the piano played the bass and offbeats). In 1922, he began a long history of playing in New York City. His first group, The Washingtonians, worked at The Hollywood Club in Manhattan (later called the Kentucky Club). Trumpet player Bubber Miley joined the band and began to use a plunger mute in a distinctive way (yes, the rubber end of a bathroom plunger!). The sound began to be known as the "Jungle Sound" and catipulted Ellington to early success.

The band didn't really hit the big time until Irving Mills became their manager and publisher in 1926. The following year, the band debuted Black and Tan Fantasy and Creole Love Call, which Ellington performed to the end of his career. Ellington's orchestra became the house band at the Cotton Club. Radio broadcasts of his club shows brought the money necessary for Ellington to hire the best available musicians, which enabled him to compose more challenging music.

Ellington left the Cotton Club in 1931 for a US and European tour. In the 1930s, Ellington transitioned to Swing music with his It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) -- a defining composition of the Swing Era.  The '40s and '50s brought jazz standards like Take the "A" Train, Perdido, The "C" Jam Blues and Satin Doll.  His son, Mercer, took over the band after Ellington's death.

Listen to Custer's Ellington medley.

Watch Ellington's 1943 performance of It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing). Notice that the brass players are using plungers.

(Information for this blog came from RedHotJazz.com)

The Chairman of the Board and The Duke

The next two choices presented at Orchestra Kentucky's October 25th concert will be a medley of songs recorded by Frank Sinatra and a medley of songs written by Duke Ellington. So, will it be the Chairman of the Board or the Duke? The audience will select what it wants to hear at the concert.

Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey and died on May 14, 1998 in Los Angeles.

Sinatra began his musical career with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, great bandleaders of the swing era. He had a successful solo career in the 1940s and was a teen idol. After a decline in popularity, his career was re-energized in 1954 after he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the film, From Here to Eternity. He recorded for Capitol Records and had several hit albums before leaving to found his own label, Reprise Records. He was a founding member of the Rat Pack and known to be close to celebrities and politicians, like John F. Kennedy.

After record sales fell off, Sinatra retired from show business in 1971. In 1973, he left retirement and recorded several albums. In 1980, he had a Top 40 hit with New York, New York and began to tour again.

Sinatra was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983 and Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985. He received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. He won eleven Grammys.

The orchestra will offer arranger John Moss' medley of Sinatra hits, entitled Salute to 'Ol Blue Eyes. The medley includes the hits I've Got You Under My Skin, Strangers in the Night, That's Life and Lady is a Tramp.

Listen to Sinatra's televised version of That's Life.

Hi-Yo, Silver, Away!

How did a 19th-century Italian composer become inextricably intertwined with a 1930s radio cowboy? Economics.

When The Lone Ranger premiered on January 30, 1933 on Detroit's WXYZ radio, the producers were working on a tight production budget. Instead of commissioning a composer to write a new theme, and incidental music for each episode, producers turned to classical music.  It was a cheap solution to their budgetary woes. There was no living composer to pay because all of the music was in the public domain--available to anyone to use for free. So, the radio show's music was "written" by great composers like Liszt, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Bizet. The main theme was adapted from the finale of the overture to Gioachino Rossini's opera William Tell.

Gioachino Rossini

Premiered on August 3, 1829, William Tell was the last of Rossini's 39 operas. Rossini based the opera on an early 14th-century Swiss legend about Tell, a folk hero who was deadly with a crossbow. Tell proved his expertise when he was arrested for failing to bow to the hat of a tyrannical Austrian ruler, which the ruler had placed on the top of a pole in the village square. Tell's punishment was to shoot an apple off of his son's head. If he refused, he would be executed. If he succeeded, he would be set free.

Tell removed two arrows from his quiver, successfully using one to split the apple. The ruler asked why he withdrew two. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the other to kill the ruler. Tell was bound and put on a ship to be taken to the ruler's castle. Tell escaped during a storm, arrived at the castle by land, and shot the ruler. His action sparked a rebellion against Austria.

The opera is mostly remembered for the famous overture. In addition to The Lone Ranger, portions of it were used in the movie A Clockwork Orange. Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich quoted the overture in the first movement of his 15th symphony.

The overture is divided into four, continuous parts:

1) Prelude: A slow introduction, played by the cello section (divided into five parts), and the double basses. A solo cello plays the theme, which is reminiscent of I've Been Working on the Railroad.

2) Storm: A drammatic section, featuring forceful trombones.

3) Ranz des Vaches: (call to the dairy cows) - This is the second most famous portion of the overture, featuring solo English horn and flute. It is often used in cartoons to signify daybreak.

4) Finale: A cavalry charge, heralded by trumpets and horns. It is this section that was used as The Lone Ranger theme.

Re-live your childhood with the Lone Ranger opening sequence.

Listen to Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops play the finale to the overture. The first minute of the recording puts you in the mood for the overture with cow mooing, galloping horses, and cowboy "yipees"!

Chorus Lines and Cowboys

Jacques Offenbach

The next two choices to be presented at Orchestra Kentucky's October 25th concert, You Be the Judge!, are Offenbach's Can-Can and the portion of Rossini's William Tell Overture known as the theme to the Lone Ranger. So, will it be music for chorus lines or cowboys that evening? We begin with the first candidate, Offenbach's contribution to the world of dance halls.

Jacques Offenbach was born Jacob Offenbach on June 20, 1819 in Cologne, Germany. He died in Paris on October 5, 1880. When Jacob was fifteen, his father took him to Paris to study the cello at the conservatory. It was then that he took his French name, Jacques.
Money problems forced Jacques to drop out of the conservatory and take a job playing cello in the Opera-comique. After a career as a virtuoso cellist and conductor, Offenbach began a successful career composing operettas. Operettas are synonymous with light opera or, in the English speaking world, musical theatre. Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (1858) was his first full-length operetta from which the Can-Can is derived.  He went on to write nearly 100 operettas.

Actually, the can-can is a physically demanding dance performed by a chorus line of female dancers, wearing costumes of long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings--in fashion in the 1890s. The dance is characterized by the dancers lifting their skirts, kicking high and suggestively moving their bodies for patrons. Offenbach's galop from Orpheus is the music most closely associated with the can-can. The music was perfect for the can-can because the can-can is actually a more lively galop.  Can-can dancers were favorite subjects for the French painter Toulouse-Lautrec (see painting on right).

Jane Avril Dancing





For a video demonstration of the can-can, danced to Offenbach's galop, click here. WARNING: This video is rated PG.

Tomorrow, we will examine Rossini's overture that has become closely associated with TV and film's Lone Ranger.

A One-Hit Wonder of the Opera Kind

Pietro Mascagni

What do Edison Lighthouse, Five Stairsteps, Terry Jacks and Pietro Masagni have in common? Give up? They are all one-hit wonders. That is, they wrote (or recorded) only one piece of music that made it big.

Poor Pietro. He wrote seventeen operas, but is only known for one: Cavalleria rusticana ("Rustic Chivalry"). But, boy was it a hit.

Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni (prounounced "mas-ka-knee") was born in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy on December 7, 1863.  He died in Rome on August 2, 1945. He wrote Cavalleria rusticana in 1890. It had one of the biggest impacts on opera history, single-handedly beginning the verismo movement in Italian operan. The verismo movement stressed realistic depictions of contemporary, everyday life, especially among the lower class. The movement rejected Romanticised or mythical subject matter. Cavalleria rusticana centers on themes of adultery, betrayel and revenge.  It doesn't get any more realistic than that. The opera caused Mascagni to enjoy great success during his lifetime as a composer and conductor of his own and other people's music.

To read the story line of the opera, click here.

The famous Intermezzo is played between two scenes of the opera. It is scored for woodwinds, organ and strings. After a quiet introduction, the organ and strings play a soaring melody, which eventually winds down to a quiet ending.

Watch conductor Riccardo Muti (recently named as the Chicago Symphony's music director) in a performance of the Intermezzo from the orchestra pit of the 1996 Festival de Ravenna. He is conducting the Orquesta del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Watch here.

Round four of our face off begins tomorrow: Offenbach versus Rossini.

Barber or Mascagni?

Samuel Barber

Today, we begin to explore the next two choices in our You Be the Judge! lineup. On Monday, October 25th, Orchestra Kentucky will present the audience with a series of choices between two compositions. They will decide at the concert what they want to hear.

One of the choices will be between Barber's Adagio for Strings and Mascagni's Intermezzo from his opera, Cavalleria Rusticana. Both are beautiful, slow, single-movement compositions that feature the string section (exclusively, with the Barber). This is going to be one of the more difficult decisions the audience will have to make.

Samuel Barber was born on March 9, 1910 and died on January 23, 1981. He composed orchestral, operatic, choral and piano music. He won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his opera Vanessa and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania into a musical family. His mother was a pianist, his aunt was a famous contralto, Louise Homer, and his uncle, Sidney Homer, was a composer of art songs. Barber wrote his first musical at the age of seven and tried to write his first opera at ten. He entered Philadelphia's prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at fourteen, where he studied voice, composition and theory. I've taken the time here to point out Barber's vocal influences because of the effect they had on his compositions, especially the Adagio.

The Adagio began as the second movement of Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11, which he composed in 1936 while spending the summer in Europe. In January 1938, Barber sent the full string version of the Adagio to the legendary conductor, Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini sent the score back to Barber without comment. This upset Barber, who avoided meeting with Toscanini. Toscanini sent word through Barber's Curtis friend and composer, Menotti, that he planned to perform the piece. Toscanini returned the score because he had already memorized it! The full string version of the Adagio was premiered on November 5, 1938, when Toscanini conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast from New York.
The piece has enjoyed immense popularity ever since its premiere as a sort of requiem for the famous. It was played at the funerals of FDR, Einstein, Princess Grace, and JFK. It was also played at the last night of the Proms, a popular London music festival, to commemorate the victims of 9-11. In popular culture, it has been used in the soundtrack of the movies Platoon and The Elephant Man.

Barber's vocal background comes to the fore with the Adagio. The work is a series of long, singing, melodic lines which slowly work up to the highest registers of the string section. The emotional peak is when the string body plays its loudest, suddenly followed by silence. Barber must have also heard his work vocally. In 1967, he transcribed the piece for eight-part choir as a setting of Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God").

Here is a link to the aforementioned 9-11 performance broadcast from London's Albert Hall on September 15, 2001. American conductor Leonard Slatkin leads the BBC Orchestra. Listen here.

A Fiedler Favorite

Arthur Fiedler

Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler recorded a collection of his favorite marches and called it, appropriately, Fiedler's Favorite Marches. As a teenager, I loved listening to this recording. It always lifted my spirits. My favorite march of Fiedler's favorites was Norwegian composer Johannes Hanssen's Valdres March.

The march will face off against Copland's Hoedown at our October 25th concert, You Be the Judge! The audience will be presented with a series of two choices and will vote at the concert on which of the two they want to hear.

In the case of Valdres versus Hoedown I can pretty much guess that the audience will pick the Copland. After all, how many people know Hanssen's march? And people just can't get enough of the Beef Tune. Today, however, I want to plead my case for the Valdres March. I hope you will take the time to listen to the recording below and give old Hanssen a chance.

Johannes Hanssen

Johannes Hanssen was born December 2, 1874 in Ullensaker, Norway, a small town near Oslo, and died on November 25,1967 in Oslo. A Norwegian bandmaster, composer and teacher, he led the Oslo Military Band from 1926 to 1934 and again from 1945 to 1946. Hanssen received the King's Order of Merit in Gold and King Haakon VII's Jubilee Medal.

His most famous composition is his Valdres March (1904), a march celebrating the beautiful Valdres region in Norway that lies between Oslo and Bergen. The main theme is the signature fanfare for the Valdres Battalion, which is based on an ancient melody formerly played on the medieval lur, an uncoiled wooden wind instrument. The melody of the trio section derives from a fiddle tune traditional in Hardanger and a pentatonic folk tune, above a typical Norwegian drone bass line. It was first performed in 1904 by the band of the second regiment of Norway, with the composer playing the baritone horn himself. Numerous settings for brass band exist in addition to various arrangements for concert band and orchestra. (From a wikipedia article on Hanssen)


What I love about the Valdres March is its novelty. First, it is more stately than, say, a march of John Philip Sousa's. Instead of a typical four bar introduction, it begins with the first theme, played by the clarinet, which is also unusual. Also, the trio theme, played by trumpet, does not have the usual oom-pah accompaniment of a Sousa march. Instead, there is a syncopated figure that gives it a floating or more relaxed feeling. My favorite moment is towards the end of the dogfight or break strain, where the French horns blast out a triumphant figure that propels us back into the first theme. The march ends, but without a "stinger," the final note that ends most marches.

Unfortunately, orchestras rarely play marches anymore (except on July 4th programs). It is part of the orchestra's heritage: Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn composed marches. In addition to Fiedler, great conductors like von Karajan and Kleiber conducted them. Let's not neglect these little gems. Attention conductors: let's not leave it to our colleagues in the band world. Play more marches!

Listen to a performance by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra.

Tomorrow, I will discuss Barber's Adagio for Strings.

"Where's the Beef?"

Aaron Copland

Several years ago, the National Beef Council chose Aaron Copland's Hoedown for its ad campaign, "Beef: It's What's for Dinner". You might remember it. One ad showed a couple dining in a restaurant (presumably on an expensive cut of beef), while an orchestra "serenaded" them with Copland's rousing music. The campaign was so successful, some people refer to Copland's work as the "beef" music.

Although Copland wrote film music (winning an Academy Award in 1950 for his score to The Heiress), he did not write the above mentioned music for a beef commercial. Instead, Hoedown was written as part of a larger work, Rodeo. Rodeo (which Copland pronounced "roh-dee-o" instead of the snobbish "roh-day-o") was the second collaboration between Copland and choreographer Agnes de Mille. The first resulted in a ballet, entitled Billy the Kid, which was based on the life of the Wild West outlaw. De Mille wanted Copland to write another "Cowboy" ballet and Rodeo was the result.

The popularity of both ballets is due, in part, to the folksiness of the music and story lines. In fact, Copland usually turned to folk music for inspiration. With Hoedown, he did more than that. He actually adapted a traditional fiddle tune, Bonaparte's Retreat. Listen here to the original fiddle tune played by Salyersville, Kentucky fiddler William Hamilton Stepp, which was recorded in 1937 for the Library of Congress.

What accounts for Hoedown's enduring popularity? In addition to its memorable tune, I believe it is because of its inherent American sound. Perhaps this is Copland's greatest contribution to the history of music. He created a sound that is uniquely American. A story illustrates my point.

In 2003, I conducted a concert with the St. Petersburg (Russia) State Symphony Orchestra. At the conclusion of a concert of Beethoven, Reinecke, and Tchaikovsky, we played the Hoedown as an encore. I was surprised to learn in rehearsal that the orchestra had never heard or played the piece!  I spent a lot of rehearsal time teaching them about American fiddling technique ("No," I told the strings, "you don't use big bows like you use in playing Tchaikovsky!"). After learning of the orchestra's ignorance of the piece, I was concerned that the audience would not know it either. Maybe this wasn't the best music to choose for an encore. But I needn't have worried. The audience immediately recognized it's American-ness and leaped to their feet at its conclusion. I believe it has the same effect on American audiences. And that's the reason the Beef Council chose it for its ad campaign.

Listen to a performance of the Hoedown, played by the London Symphony and conducted by the composer. Listen here