Larnelle Sings Spirituals-Part III

Longfellow

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.


These famous lines are from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha. I know what's going through your mind right now: "What in the world does this poem have to do with Larnelle Harris and spirituals? Nothing directly. The common link is Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony, which appears on Monday night's concert.
 
As we have discussed over the past week, Dvořák's masterpiece was influenced by African American and Native American "folk" music. In attempting to create an American style of composition, Dvořák was led to explore plantation songs, which he did. However, an even bigger influence was Dvořák's idea of Native American culture.
 
How does one learn about the Native American culture in 1892, when Dvořák was composing the symphony? By reading a poem by Longfellow, of course.
 
Dvořák was familiar with the work in Czech translation. The 1855 poem was immensely popular throughout the world and Dvořák was a huge fan of the poem. In fact, it might have been a reason that he was willing to leave the comfort of Bohemia, travel across the Atlantic, and reside in a foreign city. You see, Dvořák suffered from agoraphobia, which is a fear of being in large, open places (that pretty much describes NYC). Of course, he may have overcome his fears to collect the $15,000 salary for heading the National Conservatory of Music (that was a sum that few people earned at the time). For whatever reason, Dvořák did travel to the "New World," where he composed the eponymous work.
 
Getting back on topic, "How exactly did Longfellow's poem influence Dvořák's symphony? In an article published in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, Dvořák stated that the second movement of his Symphony No. 9, From the New World, was a "sketch or study for a later work, either a cantata or opera ... which will be based upon Longfellow's Hiawatha" and that the third movement scherzo was "suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance." (He never composed the cantata or opera.)
 
Let me be clear. Dvořák did not quote any Native American tunes. I doubt he knew many, if any. Unlike Henry Burleigh, the African American student who helped introduce him to spirituals, Dvořák did not have a Native American student at the conservatory. Besides The Song of Hiawatha, Dvořák 's only contact with "Indians" was Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, which came through NYC and appeared at the Madison Square Gardens. And let's be honest, neither the poem or the show presented an accurate view of Native American culture. (Buffalo Bill's show presented a romanticized view of the Wild West, in order to make money. He wasn't on a crusade to teach white people about the Native American culture, although his show apparently wasn't that unfair.)

A day before the symphony's premiere, in an article published in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, Dvořák explained how Native American music had been an influence on this symphony:


"I have not actually used any of the [Native American] melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral colour."

When you listen to the symphony, there is really only one place that "embodies the peculiarities" of "Indian" music. That's the second theme in the first movement. At that point, the flutes have a tune in g minor, accompanied by tom-tom-like cello fifths. It basically sounds like the score one might hear in a B movie from the '50s. Did Dvořák help create the "Indian" sound?

To be honest, the symphony is all Czech. If one doubts that assertion, one need only consider Dvořák's claim that "the music of the Negroes and of the Indians was practically identical," and some passages that suggest African-American spirituals to modern ears may have been intended by Dvořák to evoke a Native American ambiance. In other words, Dvořák had no accurate idea of what the Native America culture's music was really about. Nevertheless, we are left with one great piece of symphonic music.

Larnelle Sings Spirituals-Part II

Antonin Dvorak

In my last blog, I mentioned that the Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, found inspiration in spirituals and Native American music. Today, I will explore just how that came about.

Upon his arrival in America, Dvorak stated:

"I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."

When Dvorak took over the leadership of the National Conservatory, he quickly made the acquaintance of an African-American named Harry Burleigh. Burleigh's grandfather was a former slave who purchased his freedom. Harry learned the "plantation songs" from his grandfather when he helped him light oil street lamps each night. Apparently, Dvorak hired Burleigh to copy parts for him and sing spirituals, when requested. Dvorak would have learned songs like, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot from Burleigh. Why did Dvorak believe that spirituals were "the folk songs of America"?

According to wikipedia:

During slavery in the United States, there were systematic efforts to de-Africanize the captive Black workforce. Slaves were forbidden from speaking their native languages.

Because they were unable to express themselves freely in ways that were spiritually meaningful to them, enslaved Africans often held secret religious services. During these “bush meetings,” worshippers were free to engage in African religious rituals such as spiritual possession, speaking in tongues and shuffling in counterclockwise ring shouts to communal shouts and chants. It was there also that enslaved Africans further crafted the impromptu musical expression of field songs into the so-called "line singing" and intricate, multi-part harmonies of struggle and overcoming, faith, forbearance and hope that have come to be known as Negro spirituals.

"Folk music" has been defined as "as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers." This is exactly how spirituals were written and transmitted. No one knows who wrote Swing Low, but we know that later generations, including Dvorak, learned the songs by mouth, as opposed to by written music.

There are two obvious examples of how spirituals found their way into Dvorak's New World Symphony. The most obvious is the melody from the second, slow movement: the Largo. Most people know it as Goin' Home. What most people don't know is that it is not a spiritual. Words were add in the 1920s by another Dvorak student. Why the confusion? Because Dvorak captured the essence of spirituals with his tune. It conjures up the same type of feelings as a spiritual, like Deep River.

A less obvious example, is the third theme of the first movement. Known as the "Swing Low" theme, it is first played by the flute. The tune is almost a verbatum copy of the spiritual, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. The notes corresponding to the words "Char-i-o-t" are the first four notes of the melody. After that, Dvorak uses the notes corresponding to the words "Coming for to carry me home", but changes them a bit.

In other words, Dvorak did exactly what he always did in his music. He found inspiration in folk music (usually Bohemian folk songs) and wrote this tunes. But he didn't quote them verbatum. He captured the essence of the tunes in his own original melodies.

So, Dvorak's New World Symphony was the first time the music of America was successfully "used" in a classical composition.

It would take time for composers to follow Dvorak's lead. George Gershwin's use of jazz (which came from spirituals) in Rhapsody in Blue and his opera, Porgy and Bess, are examples from the '20s and '30s. Aaron Copland used cowboy songs in his music from Rodeo  and Billy the Kid. Charles Ives used church hymns from New England in his music. American music was no longer second-rate German music. Composers had finally developed an American voice. Dvorak would be proud.

Larnelle Sings Spirituals

Larnelle Harris

Next Monday evening, Larnelle Harris will join Orchestra Kentucky in a concert, featuring Dvořák's New World Symphony and a group of spirituals from 19th century America.

You may wonder why I'm featuring Dvorak and plantation songs on the same program. There is a very good reason. Read on.

In 1884, Jeanette Thurber founded the National Conservatory of Music in New York, City. She was among the first major patrons of classical music in the US, having attended the Paris Conservatory. Fortunately for classical music, she married Francis Thurber, a millionaire who made his fortune as a grocery wholesaler. It was her ambition to found a uniquely American school of classical music composition, a national conservatory, federally funded and based in Washington DC with branches throughout the United States. In furtherance of her goal, in 1892, Thurber brought the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák to the United States to head her conservatory. Why Dvořák?

Thurber thought Dvořák was best suited for the task of building a new school of American composers. Up to that time, American's were writing mostly second-rate German music. Having studied in Paris, Thurber was well aware of the various nationalistic movements occurring in European countries. These movements came out of the desire to write music that was distinctly Russian or German, of what have you. The composers discovered that by incorporating folk music, they could create that sound.

Dvořák, for example, had great success with his Slavonic Dances. While Brahms' Hungarian Dances actually used Hungarian folk songs,  Dvořák's melodies were his own, based on the characteristics of Bohemian or Slavic folk music.

Thurber wanted Dvořák to do for American music what he had done for Czech music. So, she brought him to NYC to head the conservatory. She, and others, had the opinion that American composers would find inspiration in spirituals and Native-American music. She believed that this music was the folk music of American.

Soon after arriving, Dvořák set to work on his best-known work, his Symphony No. 9 in E minor, subtitled From the New World. This would be his example of how composers could find inspiration in African-American and Native-American songs.

Tomorrow, I will discuss spirituals and how Dvořák used them in his symphony.

Endless Love-Part XXI

This is the last blog in preparation for tonight's Endless Love concert. The song for today is from 1996. Who says I don't feature new music?!

Change the World is a song written by Tommy Sims, Gordon Kennedy and Wayne Kirkpatrick which was recorded by Eric Clapton with backing by Babyface for the soundtrack of the 1996 film Phenomenon. The song won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year (for the songwriters), as well as Best Male Pop Vocal performance. The song was chosen by the RIAA as one of the Songs of the Century, ranked at #270.

The single peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1996. It also spent 13 weeks at #1 on the adult contemporary chart and remained on that chart for over a year and a half (80 weeks), a feat which was extraordinarily rare at the time. Since then, however, certain songs have remained on the AC chart for extended periods of time, prompting the eventual creation af an Adult Contemporary recurrent chart for songs that have stayed on the chart for many weeks and fallen below a certain threshold.

Although Change the World is better known as an unplugged acoustic track, a rare electric performance of the song was featured on Babyface's 1997 live album Babyface MTV Unplugged NYC, with Clapton on co-lead vocals, playing his namesake signature Fender Stratocaster guitar. There was also another electric cover of this track, released the following year, with Nathan East on electric bass.

In the song, the performer expresses his desire to communicate his love to an unnamed woman. This love, he fears, will go unrequited without a drastic change in his life.

Previous to the release of Clapton's hit version, the song was recorded by country superstar Wynonna Judd for her album Revelations, released in February 1996. Wynonna, however, did not release her version as a single despite the popularity of Clapton's.

Watch Clapton's live performance of the song.

Endless Love-Part XX

Today's song will be sung by Bowling Green's very own Tyrone Dunn at this weekend's Endless Love concert.

Use ta Be My Girl was a hit song by R&B vocal group The O'Jays. Released from their hit 1978 album, So Full of Love, it became a huge crossover hit. The song spent five weeks at number one on the R&B singles chart. It also peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Use ta Be My Girl became one of their biggest and most familiar hits by The O'Jays.

The O'Jays are a Canton, Ohio based soul and R&B group, originally consisting of Eddie Levert (b. June 16, 1942), Walter Williams (born August 25, 1942), William Powell (January 20, 1942–May 26, 1977), Bobby Massey and Bill Isles. The O'Jays were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. The O'Jays had their first hit with Lonely Drifter, in 1963. In spite of the record's success, the group was considering quitting the music business until Gamble & Huff, a team of producers and songwriters, took an interest in the group. With Gamble & Huff, the O'Jays (now a trio after the departure of Isles and Massey) emerged at the forefront of Philadelphia soul with Back Stabbers (1972), a pop hit, and topped the U.S. singles charts the following year with Love Train.

Watch a 2008 video of the O'Jays, singing their hit song.

Endless Love-Part IXX

Today's blog is about the title song for this weekend's Endless Love concert. Darla Day and Tryone Dunn will do the honors. Got your tickets?

Endless Love is a song originally recorded as a duet between soul singers Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, who wrote the song. In this ballad, the singers declare their "endless love" for one another. It was covered by soul singer Luther Vandross with R&B singer Mariah Carey and also by country music singer Kenny Rogers. The song also was featured in the movies Beethoven and Happy Gilmore.

Ross and Richie recorded the song for Motown, and it was used as the theme for the film Endless Love, starring Brooke Shields. Produced by Richie and arranged by Gene Page, it was released as a single from the film's soundtrack in 1981. While the film Endless Love was a success, the song became the second biggest-selling single of the year (first was Physical by Olivia Newton-John) in the U.S. and landed at number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100, where it stayed for nine weeks from August 9 to October 10, 1981. It also topped the Billboard R&B chart and the Adult Contemporary chart, and landed at number 7 in the UK.

The soulful composition became the biggest-selling single of Ross' career and her 18th career number-one single (including her work with The Supremes), while it was one of several hits for Richie as the 1980s progressed. Ross recorded a solo version of the song for her first RCA Records album, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, but the famous version was her last hit on Motown. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Richie, and was the second song with which Ross was involved that was nominated for an Oscar. It also won a 1982 American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single.

Watch a video of Diana and Lionel singing the song.

Endless Love-Part XVIII

Today's song was written by the composer for his wife. What a great Valentine's Day gift.

Woman is a song written and performed by John Lennon from his 1980 album Double Fantasy. Written by Lennon, it is an ode to his wife Yoko Ono, which is introduced by Lennon whispering, "For the other half of the sky ...", a paraphrase of a Chinese proverb, once used by Mao Zedong.

In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine on 5 December 1980, Lennon said that Woman was a "grown-up version" of the Beatles song Girl.

Woman was the second single released from the Double Fantasy album, and the first Lennon single issued after his death on 8 December 1980. The B-side of the single is Ono's song Beautiful Boys. The single debuted at #3 in the UK, then moving to #2 and finally reaching #1, where it spent two weeks, knocking off the top spot his own re-released Imagine. In the US the single spent three weeks at #2. The single was also a commercial success in New Zealand where it spent five weeks at #1.

Watch a video, featuring the song Woman.

Endless Love-Part XVII

Today's blog topic comes from a 1985 film. The lead singer of the song has a cameo role in the film. Do you know the film title and the singer?

The Power of Love is the title of a 1985 single by Huey Lewis and the News written for and featured in the 1985 blockbuster film Back to the Future. It gave the band their first number-one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, their second number-one hit on the U.S. Top Rock Tracks chart, and was a top ten hit on the UK Singles Chart, where it appeared on UK editions of the band's fourth studio album, Fore!. The song was nominated for an Academy Award at the 58th Academy Awards.

The song appears early in Back to the Future as Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) skateboards to school, then when he and his band played the song for a Battle of the Bands auditions (which a character played by Lewis himself is judging, and tells Marty's group that they are "just too darn loud"), and later when Marty returns to his neighborhood. In the sequel, Back to the Future Part II, the 2015 version of Marty attempts to play the song on his guitar just after being fired, but ends up playing it very poorly due to his damaged hand from his 1985 accident with a Rolls-Royce. Finally, it can be briefly heard playing in the car where Needles and his buddies are driving when Needles challenges Marty to the fate-determining car race near the end of Back to the Future Part III.

The music video shows the band playing in a nightclub with Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) showing up in his DeLorean, apparently after time-traveling, and a couple stealing it for a joy ride.


Watch the music video.

Endless Love-Part XVI

Today's blog subject was voted one of the top 100 greatest songs of all time.

The Way We Were is the title song to the 1973 movie The Way We Were, starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. The song was written by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, scored by Marvin Hamlisch and performed by Streisand. It won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Song and also made AFI's list of Top 100 Songs from Film; it was ranked number eight.

The Way We Were topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week in 1974 and was replaced by Love's Theme by The Love Unlimited Orchestra. It then returned to number one for two additional weeks. The song also spent two weeks atop the easy listening chart, Streisand's second single to reach the top of this chart (following 1964's People).

The 45 version of the song is a different vocal take than the version which appeared on the original movie soundtrack and subsequent greatest hits compilations. Both versions use the same music track. The difference in the vocals can most easily be heard on the line "Smiles we gave to one another" at approximately 1:15 into the song. The true 45 RPM single version has never appeared on CD. The soundtrack version of the song, a completely different take with alternate music track, appears on Just For the Record, Streisand's 4-CD box set collection released in 1991.

A bootleg of the recording sessions exists, featuring Streisand with composer Marvin Hamlisch in a recording studio as they perform various takes of the song. One segment reveals Streisand changing the first word of the song from "Daydreams" to "Memories."

Streisand's version was listed at #90 on Billboard's Greatest Songs of All Time.

Watch a video of film clips from The Way We Were, accompanied by Barbra Streisand's recording.

Endless Love-Part XV

The topic of today's blog is the song, 9 to 5, and I'm not talking about the one by Dolly Parton.

9 to 5 is also the title of a popular song recorded by Sheena Easton in 1980. It was her biggest hit. It peaked at number three in the United Kingdom in August 1980 and was released in the United States in February 1981, where it reached number one.

Easton had released one single prior to 9 to 5: Modern Girl. This had failed to chart highly, but after exposure on the BBC documentary, The Big Time, both 9 to 5 and Modern Girl were propelled into the top ten at the same time, making her the first female artist to achieve this feat. 9 to 5 became a top three hit and was one of the best-selling singles of the year.

Early in 1981, EMI Records decided to launch Easton in the US and released 9 to 5 as her debut single. The title of the song was changed to Morning Train (Nine to Five) to avoid confusion with the Dolly Parton song of the same name. Easton's song went to #1 on both the U.S. pop and adult contemporary charts; it remained at the top for two weeks on Billboard's pop chart.

The song is about a woman who waits at home all day for her man to come home from work. The music video was filmed on the Bluebell Railway, a heritage line running between East and West Sussex in England. The video stars London and South Western Railway No. 488, a preserved LSWR 0415 Class locomotive.

Watch the music video.

Endless Love-Part XIV

I remember her from the "Proud Mary" days. That's 1968 for you youngsters out there. Although Proud Mary would remain her signature hit, she would have to wait nearly 25 years for her biggest success.

What's Love Got to Do with It is the second single (after Let's Stay Together) released from Tina Turner's fifth solo album Private Dancer. In Europe it was the third single following Turner's cover of The Beatles' Help!. What's Love Got to Do with It became Turner's most successful single.

Turner had previously released two solo albums while still with her husband and musical partner, Ike Turner. She split from him in 1976 and divorced him in 1978. Following the divorce, she released two more solo albums, both of which failed on the charts. However, What's Love Got to Do with It, from her fifth solo album, reached the top five in both the US and UK. The music video was directed by Mark Robinson. The song ranked #309 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It also ranked #38 on Songs of the Century. It was the 17th best-selling single of 1984 in the UK. The song was originally recorded by UK pop group Bucks Fizz, but unreleased until 2000. In 1993, the song's name was used as the title for What's Love Got to Do With It, a biographical film about Tina Turner's life.

Up until the release of What's Love Got to Do with It, Tina Turner had not had a top ten single since the early 1970s. The single went to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for three weeks, becoming Turner's first and only solo number-one hit in America. It peaked at #3 on the UK singles chart. Tina Turner, along with then-husband Ike, first charted in the United States in 1960 with the single A Fool in Love. What's Love Got to Do with It went to number-one in the US on September 1, 1984, making it the longest span between an artist's first charted song and first number-one song (a difference of 24 years). Another notable fact is that Turner was 45-years-old when the song hit number one, making her the oldest solo female artist to place a number-one single on the US Hot 100. (Grace Slick, who is older than Turner by about one month, hit #1 in 1985 and 1987 with We Built This City and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, respectively, but she was not a solo act on those recordings but instead a member of Starship). In 1999, Cher at age 53 became the oldest solo female to have a US number-one hit when Believe hit the top position in America.

The song received three awards at the 1985 Grammy Awards. The music video for the song claimed a prize at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1985 for "Best Female Video". The song received the following awards at the 1985 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

Watch Tina Turner perform her number one hit.