Re: Humor: QUOTES BY FAMOUS MUSICIANS

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

>"I think popular music in this country is one of the few things in the
>20th century that have made giant strides in reverse."
>-Bing Crosby


Actually, judging from the recent (I think basically sympathetic) biography 
of the first half of Crosby's life and career, it was *Crosby's* music that 
took a consistent, and *deliberate,* path "backward" (from somewhat 
inventive/fresh/jazzy to mass-market shlocky) in the course of much of the 
century.  But then, unlike his biographer (Gary Giddins, I think--a writer 
w/ many jazz credits, anyway), I never cared for Crosby at all.  He's the 
(in, granted, stereotypical but I think not totally invalid terms) 
WASPy/cool/nonvulnerable/don't show your feelings counterpart to, at his 
best, Sinatra's intense/vulnerable singing.  You *never* see right into 
Crosby's soul, or heart, when he's singing--and he wanted it that way.

I guess what his statement comes down to is that the movement from "White 
Christmas" and "Would You Like to Swing on a Star" (though Crosby _did_, 
anomalously, sing Yip Harburg's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?") to 
"Violets of Dawn," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "Both Sides Now" ("Clouds") is 
a *downward* movement of meaning, richness, depth, metaphor, or what have 
you--and I could, of course, pick any of *hundreds* (or thousands) of songs, 
from dozens or scores or hundreds of other, mostly lesser-known songwriters, 
for my last three examples.

Just more of that Golden Age crapola (er, on the Victrola) --

Robert Cohen





_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+