Category: video

Saint Paul and the Broken Bones, “All I Ever Wonder”

Saint Paul and the Broken Bones, “All I Ever Wonder”

Vocalist Paul Janeway and bassist Jesse Phillips met in the mid-2000s while playing in Birmingham as part of the alternative soul outfit The Secret Dangers. In 2012, Jesse and Paul met back in Ol’ Elegante Studios in Birmingham to start a new project. Janeway says of the project with Phillips, “It was going to be our last hurrah” before focusing on other careers, “but then something just clicked and we walked out of there with something.”

As the two began working around Janeway’s voice, they realized they were forming a soul outfit. As the project progressed, the pair brought in Browan Lollar, formerly of The 400 Unit, Andrew Lee, Ben Griner, and Allen Branstetter. Here, they recorded their first EP, Greetings from St. Paul and The Broken Bones before ever playing a live show.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Russian Red Army Choir, “Song of the Volga Boatmen”

Russian Red Army Choir, “Song of the Volga Boatmen” with Leonid Kharitonov

The “Song of the Volga Boatmen” is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev, and published in his book of folk songs in 1866. It was sung by burlaks, or barge-haulers, on the Volga River. Balakirev published it with only one verse (the first). The other two verses were added at a later date. Ilya Repin’s famous painting, Barge Haulers on the Volga, depicts such burlaks in Tsarist Russia toiling along the Volga.

The song was popularised by Feodor Chaliapin, and has been a favourite concert piece of bass singers ever since. Glenn Miller’s jazz arrangement took the song to #1 in the US charts in 1941. Russian composer Alexander Glazunov based one of the themes of his symphonic poem “Stenka Razin” on the song.

Spanish composer Manuel De Falla wrote an arrangement of the song, which was published under the name Canto de los remeros del Volga (del cancionero musical ruso) in 1922. He did so at the behest of diplomat Ricardo Baeza, who was working with the League of Nations to provide financial relief for the more than two million Russian refugees who had been displaced and imprisoned during World War I. All proceeds from the song’s publication were donated to this effort. Igor Stravinsky made an arrangement for orchestra.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Mads Langer, “The Beauty of the Dark”

Mads Langer, “The Beauty of the Dark”

Mads Langer (born 1984) is a Danish singer-songwriter, who became internationally known for his cover of “You’re Not Alone” by the British band Olive. While the song is cheerful, his own songs are frequently typified as emotional guitar ballads, because many of them are in a minor scale and have a melancholic feel to them.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Music History: Montserrat Caballé,  “O Mio Babbino Caro”

Montserrat Caballé,  “O Mio Babbino Caro” by Giacomo Puccini

December 22 is the birthday of Giacomo Puccini, in full Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, who was born on December 22, 1858, in Lucca,Tuscany, Italy, He died on November 29, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium. He has been called “the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi”.

Puccini’s early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera. Later, he successfully developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

Puccini’s most renowned works are La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904), all of which are among the important operas played as standards.

In 1923, Puccini complained of a recurring sore throat and sought medical advice. Though an initial consultation turned up nothing serious, during a subsequent examination he was diagnosed with throat cancer. As the cancer had by that point progressed beyond where it could be operated upon, Puccini traveled to Brussels in 1924 for an experimental radiation treatment. Too weak to endure the procedure, he died in the hospital seven days later, on November 29, 1924. At the time of his death, Puccini had become the most commercially successful opera composer of all time, worth the equivalent of an estimated $200 million.

After an initial burial in Milan, in 1926 his body was moved to his Torre del Lago estate, where a small chapel was constructed to hold his remains. An opera celebration called “Festival Puccini” is held in the town every year in honor of its most famous resident.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Thirteen Senses, “Into the Fire”

Thirteen Senses, “Into the Fire”

Thirteen Senses are a post-britpop band from Penzance, Cornwall. The group released the album “The Invitation” on 27 September 2004, along with several singles: “Thru the Glass”, “Do No Wrong”, “Into the Fire” and “The Salt Wound Routine”, of which the first three have reached the UK Top 40. Their second album, “Contact”, was released in April 2007. Thirteen Senses are the only Cornish band to have a Top 20 single.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Sophie Tucker, “Some of These Days”

Sophie Tucker, “Some of These Days”, 1926, Featuring Ted Lewis and His Band

Sophie Tucker was born as Sophia Kalish on January 13, 1884 in Russia. When she was still an infant, her parents emigrated to the United States and settled near Hartford, Connecticut. In 1903, she was briefly married to Louis Tuck; from which she decided to change her name to Tucker.

She made her debut in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1909 and made the first of her recordings, including “Some of These Days” for Edison in 1911. The tune, written by Shelton Brooks became an instant hit and her theme song, and later was the title of her autobiography published in 1945.In 1921 Tucker hired pianist Ted Shapiro as her accompanist and musical director. Shapiro would remain with Tucker the rest of her career, and was also her lifelong friend.

Tucker made her first movie appearance in the 1929 early sound motion picture “Honky Tonk” where she was billed with her nickname, ‘The Last of the Red Hot Mammas’. Her hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, unusual for female performers of the era. In 1938, due to her efforts to unionize professional actors, she was elected President of the American Federation of Actors.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Footprintz, “Heaven Felt like Night”

Footprintz, “Heaven Felt like Night” from the Album “Escape Yourself”

Footprintz is a dance electronic band formed by Clarian North and Andy Weitzman under the label of Visionquest.

What becomes apparent throughout ‘Escape Yourself’ is a real craftsmanship to Footprintz’s songwriting. Each track reveals a little more on each listen, aided by the slick production work, done predominantly by the guys themselves in their Montreal bunker studio full of analogue equipment, odd instruments and a fridge laden with ‘special brownies’; which goes some way to explain a noirish-haze that permeates through the album.

Having met at an afterparty aged 15, Clarian North & Adam Hunter have experienced most of their adult life together. ‘Escape Yourself’ distills their experiences, wraps them in a warm analogue fuzz and shares them with the listener. You join them on their journey, and deep down they hope it helps you shape your own.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Kiran Ahluwalia and Timariwen, “Mustt Mustt”

Kiran Ahluwalia and Timariwen, “Mustt Mustt”, 2011

Kiran Ahluwalia is an Indian singer, songwriter who infuses African desert blues and Western musical styles. She was born in Patna, grew up in Delhi and moved to Toronto at the age of nine. After completing her MBA at Dalhousie University, she returned to Toronto with the plan of being in the financial services industry. However, she changed her mind and went back to India to study music and then returned to Toronto to build her career as a musician. Kiran Ahluwalia is married to guitar player and co-arranger Rez Abbasi, and currently lives in New York.

Tinariwen (Tamasheq: “deserts”) is a Grammy Award-winning group of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed in 1979 in Tamanrasset, Algeria, but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s. The group first started to gain a following outside the Sahara region in 2001 with the release of “The Radio Tisdas Sessions”, and with performances at Festival au Désert in Mali and the Roskilde Festival in Denmark.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Juan Zelada, “Breakfast in Spitalfields”

Juan Zelada, “Breakfast in Spitalfields” from the EP “What Do I Know”

Juan Zelada is a Spanish singer, songwriter and musician. Raised in a musical family environment, which consisted of jam sessions throughout the different generations, his talent and love for music flourished.

In 2006 he completed his studies at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, where he received an award for composition from Paul McCartney who called his recording a “smashing cd”.

Having moved to London, he set up a band, while still playing in restaurants, pubs, hotels and even cruise ships. He played the London scene to great acclaim and supported Amy Winehouse on her Back to Black tour.

In 2012, Juan Zelada released the single “Breakfast in Spitalfields” which became a national success being the most aired single on BBC Radio 2 only second to Adele.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Lisa Gerrard, “Sanvean: I Am Your Shadow”

Lisa Gerrard, “Sanvean: I Am Your Shadow”, 1995

“Sanvean: I Am Your Shadow” is a song co-written in September 1993 by Lisa Gerrard and composer/multi-instrumentalist Andrew Claxton during rehearsals in Ireland for the 1993 Dead Can Dance international tour. Lisa Gerrard stated she wrote this song as she was missed her family which had remained in Australia.

The song’s first public performance was in Sligo, Ireland. It first recorded on Dead Can Dance’s 1994 live album “Toward the Within”. “Sanvean: I Am Your Shadow” later was included on Gerrard’s 1995 solo album “The Mirror Pool” and the 2007 “The Best of Lisa Gerrard”. Like most of her work, the song is sung in a euphonic and emotional pseudo-language which she developed in her early years.

“I sing in the language of the Heart. Its an invented language that I’ve had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language.” –Lisa Gerrard

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Sully Erna, “Sinner’s Prayer”

Sully Erna, “Sinner’s Prayer”

“Sinner’s Prayer” is a song by American rock musician Sully Erna. It is the lead single from his 2010 debut album Avalon. The song was originally written for Sylvester Stallone’s blockbuster “The Expendables” but later taken off the film and soundtrack during post-production. However, the song is reinstated back in the film in the extended director’s cut during the films new opening credits sequence.

In 2008, after Godsmack members started working on their side-project, Another Animal, Sully Erna began work on his first solo album. With the help of singer Lisa Guyer, whom he’d previously worked with on Hollow, Sully Erna worked on the album through 2009, and “Sinner’s Prayer” was chosen to become the first official single to be released from Avalon.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Nina Simone, “Feeling Good”

“Feeling Good” is a song written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the 1964 musical “The Roar Of The Greasepaint—The Smell Of The Crowd” and has since been recorded by many artists, including Muse, Sammy Davis Jr., Bobby Darin, Traffic, Michael Bublé, The Pussycat Dolls, George Michael, John Barrowman, John Coltrane, Toše Proeski, Frank Sinatra Jr., and Adam Lambert.

Perhaps the most famous version was recorded by Nina Simone, and first appeared on her 1965 album “I Put A Spell On You”. Simone’s version is also featured in the 1993 film “Point Of No Return”, in which the protagonist uses the code name ‘Nina’ and professes to be a longtime fan of Simone’s music. At least half the soundtrack for the film featured Nina Simone songs.