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Post by Kapitan on Jul 28, 2023 13:45:10 GMT
And of course...
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 28, 2023 13:54:00 GMT
He wasn't Leon Russell, but...
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 28, 2023 13:56:34 GMT
Meanwhile, I can only picture George W. Bush as playing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the recorder in kindergarten. (Not fair, I know! He just had that way about him.)
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 28, 2023 13:59:32 GMT
Meanwhile, I can only picture George W. Bush as playing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the recorder in kindergarten. (Not fair, I know! He just had that way about him.)
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 28, 2023 14:05:26 GMT
OK, this is the last one. I promise. 
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Post by jk on Jul 28, 2023 14:12:01 GMT
It isn't the same thing - and I'm not implying that it is - but in the early 1960s there was a comedian named Vaughn Meader who impersonated President John F. Kennedy. Not only did Meader impersonate Kennedy in his nightclub act and on TV, but he also released an album, The First Family, that sold about 8 million copies and won a Grammy. President Kennedy actually liked the album and made one-liners about Meader and the album at press conferences. When JFK was assassinated in 1963, Meader's career quickly faded. I recall a comedy version of “Wild Thing” by a Senator Bobby that went US top twenty—until Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, when quite understandably it was withdrawn from all record stores and vanished from the airwaves (and the charts).
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Post by kds on Jul 28, 2023 15:43:16 GMT
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Post by The Cincinnati Kid on Jul 28, 2023 18:21:15 GMT
Never knew the history of that song, very fascinating. I had forgotten about it. It's got me thinking that even the oldies radio station here isn't even playing much '50s music these days. Spotify streams? 13.5 million.
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Post by The Cincinnati Kid on Jul 28, 2023 18:23:10 GMT
As time goes on, it seems more and more crazy that he did that Hotline Bling video. 
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Post by kds on Jul 28, 2023 18:31:31 GMT
As time goes on, it seems more and more crazy that he did that Hotline Bling video. He could be pretty funny at times. He really could've used that to his advantage and been more endearing, but.....
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 29, 2023 1:47:44 GMT
Knew about It's All in the Game being a hit two times, but never knew it was two different recordings, so I listened to the original version just now - nope, never heard it before. Mom had a Tommy Edwards album. I really miss sitting and listening to music with her, and being able to ask her about the older stuff.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 29, 2023 12:17:13 GMT
One thing that struck me--even though I knew it intellectually and we've even discussed it some, I believe--is how many people released versions of this song within a relatively short time. Even in that first year of 1951 there were several. By the time it was a hit again in 1958, there were at least half a dozen, including a few by prominent artists like Dinah Shore, Louis Armstrong, and Nat King Cole!
Through the years you could make a who's who with artists who recorded it: Merle Haggard, Rick Nelson, Bobby Vinton, Glen Campbell, Jackie DeShannon, Robert Goulet, Ben E. King, Isaac Hayes, Johnny Mathis, Art Garfunkel, Bobby Vee, Sammy Davis Jr ... I'll stop there, but there are dozens more.
Sticking to those early ones, I find it so interesting that musicians would release the same song so close in time to one another. And I actually like it quite a bit as a way to see the material in different ways. Can you imagine if Taylor Swift wrote and recorded a song this year and if by 2025 there were versions by Beyonce, The Black Keys, Jack White, John Legend, Brandi Carlisle, the Chicks, etc.?
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 29, 2023 12:36:41 GMT
One thing that struck me--even though I knew it intellectually and we've even discussed it some, I believe--is how many people released versions of this song within a relatively short time. Even in that first year of 1951 there were several. By the time it was a hit again in 1958, there were at least half a dozen, including a few by prominent artists like Dinah Shore, Louis Armstrong, and Nat King Cole! Through the years you could make a who's who with artists who recorded it: Merle Haggard, Rick Nelson, Bobby Vinton, Glen Campbell, Jackie DeShannon, Robert Goulet, Ben E. King, Isaac Hayes, Johnny Mathis, Art Garfunkel, Bobby Vee, Sammy Davis Jr ... I'll stop there, but there are dozens more. Sticking to those early ones, I find it so interesting that musicians would release the same song so close in time to one another. And I actually like it quite a bit as a way to see the material in different ways. Can you imagine if Taylor Swift wrote and recorded a song this year and if by 2025 there were versions by Beyonce, The Black Keys, Jack White, John Legend, Brandi Carlisle, the Chicks, etc.? I think there were two main reasons for songs being covered by so many artists. Back in those days, especially the 1950s, many of those artists were churning out albums every year (sometimes two per year, similar to The Beach Boys in the early 1960s). Also, there weren't the number of songwriters (so, obviously less songs available) that sprung up later. If there was a good song out there, it was gonna be scooped up, it was gonna be covered! It wasn't an ego thing. They were looking for hits - and filler - and they didn't care where the songs came from.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 29, 2023 12:42:24 GMT
One other thing I was thinking is that fewer artists wrote their own songs. So material really was just material, or at least more so. An artist might be identified with a song written by somebody else, but probably not to the degree they were later. I'm sure it felt different to rerecord Song X, written by somebody the public had never heard of, than it would to rerecord a song written and recorded by another artist.
Just a few years later, it was obvious when people were rerecording Dylan songs and Beatles songs, but it wasn't so long before even that seems to have become less common. I know it continued to some degree into the 70s. But by the 80s, were there many popular artists--I'm talking rock and roll, teenager music--largely doing what now we'd call covers? Seems to me that by then it was mostly the Barbra Streisands and Bette Midlers of the world, not U2, Madonna, or Bon Jovi.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 29, 2023 12:59:11 GMT
One other thing I was thinking is that fewer artists wrote their own songs. So material really was just material, or at least more so. An artist might be identified with a song written by somebody else, but probably not to the degree they were later. I'm sure it felt different to rerecord Song X, written by somebody the public had never heard of, than it would to rerecord a song written and recorded by another artist. Just a few years later, it was obvious when people were rerecording Dylan songs and Beatles songs, but it wasn't so long before even that seems to have become less common. I know it continued to some degree into the 70s. But by the 80s, were there many popular artists--I'm talking rock and roll, teenager music--largely doing what now we'd call covers? Seems to me that by then it was mostly the Barbra Streisands and Bette Midlers of the world, not U2, Madonna, or Bon Jovi. Yes, exactly. Many (most?) of the great singers of the 50s and some from the 60s didn't write songs. They were singers/performers and that was enough. And then came folk music and rock & roll! 
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Sept 30, 2024 19:53:42 GMT
Sept 30, 2024 19:53:42 GMT
