When it comes right down to it, what do we expect from music: to have our emotions stirred, to be inspired, to be entertained, or some combination of all three? Of the three I'd say only the latter, to be entertained, is usually a conscious choice on the part of the listener, but it's a performer's ability to accomplish the first two that guarantees their success.
Think about all the one hit wonders that have come and gone over the years. A performer produces some fluke combination of elements that makes a piece attractive for a short period of time, and then both the song and the performer disappear without a trace.
The expression flash in the pan, with its implication of sparks without anything to sustain a fire, used in this context makes perfect sense. The song has all the technical ingredients required to make it enjoyable, just like a spark will temporarily provide light, but it has no substance to burn so it quickly fades away to nothingness.
The music that stays with us is not only entertaining in some form or another, but also has the elements required to stir our emotions and inspire us on a subconscious level. It's the difference that separates the songs of bands like The Rolling Stones and the Beatles from groups like the Monkees and the Osmonds. They all had hit records in and around the same time period, but whose music has stood the test of time?
Harry "The Hipster" Gibson was born in 1915 and lived until 1991. He is a prime example of a performer who not only could entertain his audience, no matter what era he played, but also had the gifts necessary to make an indelible impression.
He made his first recordings in the 1930s and his last in 1989 for Delmark Records of Chicago. Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine? contains studio recordings of some of Harry's favourite songs drawn from the length and breadth of his infamous career, and also contains six tracks from a live recording he did with an anonymous blues rock band in bar from the seventies.
Harry grew up in the South Bronx borough of New York City and learned the jive talking of his black neighbours as naturally as he did the rest of his vocabulary. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, and far too many pop musicians today, it never sounded like an affectation when Harry jived. Not only did he have the patter, his accent was far too South Bronx to ever question his "street credibility".
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