Tag Archives: Popular and Standards

The classic, horrifying, mesmerizing song “Strange Fruit” has received a lot of attention of late – Steve Rhodes reported on a PBS special on the song and its creation back in April. Besides being a milestone in the civil rights movement, Billie Holiday’s 1939 version of the song was also …

Everyone knows how great Ella Fitzgerald is: she is considered by many to be the greatest female singer of the 20th century. But for many of us those are just words. Actually hearing Ella sing, recorded live with a series of small combos, is another story altogether. If you haven’t …

If Norah Jones (who is also on Blue Note) is a jazz singer, so is Van Morrison. From a press release: Van Morrison has signed a worldwide deal with EMI Music’s legendary Blue Note label, which will give one of music’s most creative figures a home at the prestigious jazz …

Al Barger wrote a very nice tribute to Joe Jackson for his 48th birthday just today. Coincidentally, Jackson’s most popular album has jsut been re-released in Deluxe Edition form. Night and Day, originally released in ’82, was Jackson’s move into nocturnal Tin Pan Alley pop and piano cocktail jazz, where …

Happy putative birthday to Louis Armstrong, who would’ve been 103 if he were alive today – and the story of his birth on July 4th, 1900 were at all true. Pop music will forever be in Armstrong’s debt: listening to his earliest recordings with the Hot Five, you can trace …

Grammy-winning, silky-voiced quiet storm superstar Luther Vandross is in critical but stable condition in a Manhattan hospital: Luther Vandross contracted pneumonia after suffering a stroke and had to undergo a tracheotomy to help him breathe, but the procedure didn’t damage his vocal chords, his representatives said Monday. ….His business manager, …

I was a weird kid and started reading songwriting and production credits on the very firs records I bought in the late ’60s. I thought names “Boudleaux and Felice Bryant” among the most exotic I had ever encountered when I saw them in conjunction with some of my favorite Everly …

The great sultry, angry jazz singer died at her home in France. All Music Guide has a fine bio: Of all the major singers of the late 20th century, Nina Simone is one of the hardest to classify. She’s recorded extensively in the soul, jazz, and pop idioms, often over …

The horrid little French-Canadian diva twig has dug in for three years in Las Vegas: Celine Dion took the stage Tuesday night at Caesars Palace in the debut of “A New Day,” a multimillion-dollar extravaganza that will test the French-Canadian superstar’s staying power. The diva belted out 20 tunes in …

The best tribute album I have heard in a very long time (better than Making God Smile, even) is dedicated to …. Lee Hazlewood. Lee whom, you may well ask? Producer, songwriter, artist, label owner, Hazlewood was an original Cosmic Cowboy, best known for his work with Duane Eddy and …