Synthways to Hype--all "Stairways" to date

One thing you learn on the Internet is that Casio synthesizers are the uncoolest synths of all. They're a metaphor for bad sound and bad musicianship. Therefore, logic tells us that, since I have a Casio snyth, I produce lousy sounds and I suck as a musician. Oh, well....

However, if I ever upgrade to a Roland or something, I'll become a good musician. That's how it works, apparently!

The Internet is such a simple, black and white place. Come, join the Cyberpeople. You have only yourself to lose. (Shrieking violins, fade) Buwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!

Anyway, here are all of my lousy variations to date on Stairway to Heaven, that horrible, and horribly over-hyped, art song (or whatever it is) by Led Zeppelin. Like all allegedly extended compositions in rock, the tune is mostly a repetition of tonic-stranded phrases. Sad to realize that, as early as the late 1960s, any pop rendered at a normal volume sounded "Classical" to young, rock-damaged listeners. With this wretched song, "Classical" officially came to mean cliched chord progressions played at mezzo-piano and repeated until the songwriter goes, "Oh, crap. I'd better add something new." Step aside, Mozart.

And don't get me started on that other "Classical" rock song, Good Vibrations.

Anyway, for all that, Stairway is fun to doodle with. Its nothing nature makes it easy to work with, on one hand, but hard to wring character out of, on the other. I've come up with scores of variations in my head, but I've only used a fraction of them, lest they all sound like the same one. I have no idea what I just typed.

These have all appeared before, but remember that at the moment I have to recycle stuff. So, why not recycle me? (That would be fine with you? Hey, wait a minute....)

These were all composed on music software by me and MAGIX-tweaked by the same person. (MAGIX is my sound-editing program.) Enjoy.

Stairway to Laredo

Stairway to Manhattan

Stairway to Polka

Stairway to Satie

Stairway to Counterpoint

Stairway to Yuletide

Stairway to Kuhlau

Stairway to Laredo 2

Stairway to Godzilla

Stairway Through Time

Stairway to Chopsticks

Stairway to My House

Stairway to Mystery

Stairway to Liberty

Stairway to Calliope

(Now to check all of the links to make sure they're correct....)

Lee

Technical difficulties of the completely unexpected kind

Birds, birds everywhere. (Click on photo for much larger image.)

So, I've been using my new HP computer for all of three months, and yesterday the CD/DVD drive stopped reading CDs. So, no playing or burning. No booting. No nothing, disc-wise.

Yikes!

Of course, my HP tells me the "device" is working properly. And the troubleshooting menu tells me nothing. I was able to check all, or most, of what I was asked to check. I don't know much about CD/DVD drives, but I'm guessing the dang thing has simply stopped spinning.

To quote Bill Cobsy, "It's broke."

Until the problem is fixed, I won't be able to present any new material. Ain't that a kicker?? My Dell CD burner lasted three years and is still (as far as I know) going strong. Of course, my Dell had become slower than paint drying on plastic, but at least the dang CD drive read CDs.

So, the extra Frankie Laine tracks will have to wait. Along with recently-burned instrumental stuff. And a number of shellac transfers. It all depends on when Steve, our tech-for-hire, can get out here. I'm guessing he'll replace the drive altogether. The dang thing should be under warranty. I would hope.

Good grief.

And, while I was typing this, an eBay scam appeared in my Inbox. It says, "I think this is exactly what we are looking for.. our school needs but our budget is small..any info you could provide on this would be so helpful We need to try to find out about it ASAP- as your auction ends tomorrow. thanks- Francisc Barett"

Of course, I have nothing for sale on eBay. Anyway, I get these things every several days. Thanks, "eBay," whoever you are. At least I'm not getting any requests to "update" my eBay information--i.e., to give my credit card # to thieves.

"eBay" has frozen my account numerous times. The real eBay, of course, likes me just fine.

Until the problem is fixed, I'll be recycling stuff. And I should have ten or so recently-uploaded mp3s at Box.

Darn it all.


Lee

The Roots of Country, Part 2--Keep on the Sunny Side

(This is a rerun of an August 1, 2005 post which I also reran in 2006. Which would make this a re-rerun, I suppose):
















They're perhaps the most famous opening lines in country music history: "There's a dark and a troubled side of life; There's a bright and a sunny side, too. Tho' we meet with the darkness and strife, The sunny side we also may view." Keep on the Sunny Side was the theme song of "Country Music's First Family," aka the Carter Family. And Ada Blenkhorn is deservedly famous for her 1899 lyrics, which are so beloved by so many. I reckon there are probably any number of Ada Blenkhorn sites out there.



















Ahhh... yeah. In reality, of course, Ada's lyrics were long ago credited to A.P. Carter, who swiped all three stanzas and who receives credit for Sunny Side in the liner notes for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and at the A Prairie Home Companion website, and just about everywhere else. Which is worse, I wonder? Writing world-famous words and having your name forgotten, or writing world-famous words and having them stolen from you? Tough call.

Anyway, the 1903 Biglow & Main songbook Devotional Songs got the details right, crediting the words to Ada and the music to J. Howard Entwisle. At the bottom of the page are details lost to the ages, including the year of copyright and the words "Used by permission." At this point in the song's history, they seem like artifacts from some forgotten dimension.










"Sunny side" songs were a common item in the 1890s, as suggested by the existence of an earlier Keep on the Sunny Side (1896) by George C. Stebbins: "Keep on the sunny side, Keep on the sunny side. With Jesus near, Why should we fear? Let us keep on the sunny side." And by the appearance in 1899 of The Sunny Side of the Road, whose chorus begins (you'll never guess), "Keep on the sunny side...." None of the tunes in question sound remotely alike, but you get the point.















And, as we've already seen, sun-themed songs remained popular into the late 1920s. So, how did A.P. Carter, in 1928, get away with swiping the words and melody of a popular sun song?

I suspect it's because, by the 1920s, Sunday-school songs like Keep on the Sunny Side of Life were becoming less and less a part of middle-class life--less of an accepted one, anyway. Average folks didn't stop singing these songs, by any means, but, more and more, gospel tunes and revival meetings came to be associated with "the people" (i.e. the underclass), with the South, with the "folk." Thus, we have today's mass-media myth that revival songs were unknown to the middle class, that class being too busy with bourgeois things like tea parties and chamber music concerts to have time for Send the Light. Who would have guessed that some of our most down-home songs were, in fact, the Ozzie and Harriet culture of their time?

Anyway, here's the superb Johnson Family Singers with a comparatively upbeat rendition of Sunny Side (compared, that is, to the almost funeral-dirge treatment the Carters gave it).

Keep on the Sunny Side, The Johnson Family Singers.

Please save, rather than open, files for best results. Thanks!

A.P. Carter

Blogger--on its way out, or what??

So, I click on the URL for my blog, and... nothing. No blog.

Just space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the....

(Sorry. Decades of conditioning. It won't happen again.)

So, what the heck is going on?

Byron linked me to an article about the disaster that, anymore, is Blogger: Blogger Bugs

I want my blog back. At the moment, I can bring up specific posts, but the all-purpose address ain't working. Meanwhile, Blogger is telling me that the new version is ready for me.

Right. Two things: 1) I've tried to get in, and it won't let me, and 2) Based on what I've heard and read about the new, "improved" service, I wouldn't "upgrade" to the thing if an eternity in Hell were the alternative.

Well, maybe if an eternity in Hell were the alternative. Let's not be foolish.

The problems on my end--posts sometimes vanish while I'm making them; no save-as-draft option available; the Blogger "dashboard" typically takes minutes to come up (and I have DSL).

Oh, and my blog is gone, at the moment. Let's not forget to mention that.

Anyway, what in Jiminy Christmas is going on? All I know is that, ten times out of ten, any "improvement" to a service results in all kinds of weird and aggravating technical screw-ups. And a general loss of service. You'd think that, when something happens each and every time, the folks behind all these "improvements" might grow to--I don't know--ANTICIPATE that there will be problems? Or (and this is a stretch) anticipate what the problems will be?

Or is thinking ahead just out of the question? Or do software upgrades HAVE to be made with all the forethought given to making a lane change under the influence of crack?

We Blogger bloggers may have to start looking for an alternative. Meanwhile, I wonder if I'm "publishing" this entry into... nothing? We're about to find out.

(Star Trek transporter sound Fx)


Lee

R.I.P., Frankie Laine (1913-2007)

Rawhide (Washington-Tiomkin), with Jimmy Carroll and His Orchestra, 1958.

Mule Train (Lange-Heath-Glickman), Frankie Laine and The Mule-Skinners, 1949.

High Noon (Washington-Tiomkin), 1952.

Jealousy, 1951.

Hambone (R. Saunders), with Jo Stafford, 1952.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, 1961.

Ghost Riders in the Sky, 1963.

Miserlou, 1963.

Blazing Saddles, 1974.

Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams, 1946.

Old Fashioned Love, 1947.

The Kid's Last Fight (Bob Merrill), 1953.


Lee

Yes, the occasional cardinal drops by our place

Spooky timing on this shot, no? (Click on photo for larger iamge.) These guys must have known they were going to be on the Internet.

Yes, it snowed today.



Lee

Rek o Kut's Archival Preamp in action; Bo Diddley, 1935-style

Not a blog-post title you see everyday, no? (I mean, yes?)

But every word of it is true. As sure as my name is Blelp Rentmeier, XVII.

My new Rek o Kut archival preamp, which I added to my stereo today, is bigger than a cellphone and smaller than a brick. It allows me to bypass the preamp in my Sony amplifier and go right into the AUX jacks--and with the choice of two freq. curves: RIAA or 78 rpm. At the moment, I'm using the 78 curve.

And what a difference it makes to have the 78 signal right from the get-go, to NOT have to fix it after it's been RIAA-curve-ized. I knew it would make a difference, but I didn't know how much of one. Wow. My stereo, transformed by a unit the size of one and a half Klondike bars.

So, here are four 78 restorations I did tonight, starting with Andre Kostelanetz' Rumba Fantasy from 1935. This is interesting on several fronts: It's a great example of early easy-listening, it's a superb performance, and--best of all--at the start (and during Siboney) the castanets are playing a Bo Diddley beat clear as morning. What we know as the Bo Diddley beat, I should say. In 16th notes, with the accents as follows: 1--4--7--/--3-5---. You can't miss it.

Rumba Fantasy (The Peanut Vendor-Siboney-Adios-Mama Inez-Tony's Wife)--Andre Kostelanetz Presents, 1935. From 12" Victor 78.

And here's the fabulous flip, Don Redman's Chant of the Weed, which I've featured before. Does "weed" refer to marijuana, you're wondering? I would say no; to my ears, it's just one of the many longing-to-return-to-Africa titles of the period. Lest the idea sound racist, think of it as Roots, only decades earlier. A popular relic of the Harlem Renaissance, I'm guessing, and not a celebration of "weed":

Chant of the Weed (Don Redman)--Andre Kostelanetz Presents, 1935.

And here are two by Paul Whiteman's orchestra, both from 1927. Bix Beiderbecke and his cornet appear near the end of Changes, right after Bing Crosby's raspy and slightly fuzzy solo spot. Crosby also shows up on Shanghai Dream Man, though he stays in the background.

Changes (Walter Donaldson)--Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, 1927. Arranged by Bill Challis, 1927. From Victor 78.


Shanghai Dream Man (Davis-Akst)--Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, 1927. Arranged by Ferde Grofe. From Victor 78.



Lee

McAfee--on the ball

I just received this up-to-date message from them: "YOUR MCAFEE SECURITY PROTECTION EXPIRES ON 09/22/2006."

Oh, boy.... I'd better act fast!

Er, I mean--Tsaf tca retteb d'I!


Lee