By Sound Beat

By Sound Beat

You’re listening to Dame Nellie Melba’s Farewell speech, recorded at Covent Garden in 1926. And, You’re on the Sound Beat Andre Escoffier would’ve cleaned up on the late 1800’s version of Top Chef. The French chef extraordinaire was known for his creative haute cuisine, and for naming his dishes after stars that frequented his restaurants. There wa…

You’re listening to the Carter Family’s rendition of “Honey in the Rock”, a Coral Record from 1949, and you’re on the Sound Beat. Frederick A. Graves originally wrote the song in 1895, but his version was a bit, well, heavy…A.P. Carter then rewrote it in 1937 to better fit the Carter Family’s repertoire. In short, he focused more on the “honey and …

You’re listening to the Five Satins with In the Still of the Night, an Embassy 78 from 1956 and…. You’re on the Sound Beat Nighttime is often the right time for thoughtful reflection. Especially when one is on guard duty in the Army. Such is the case with this song, written by Fred Parris while on active duty. He and the Satins recorded it in the b…

You’re listening to one of the most distinctive signature sounds in all of recorded music, and… You’re on the Sound Beat. That telltale whoop belongs to Sonny Terry, one of the most influential harmonica players of all time. Blind, but not from birth, Terry lost his sight one eye at a time, first in early childhood, and the second in his late teens…

Between them, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope dominated tv, records, radio and the driving range. But their film careers were made during the “Road” features. The 7 total films were released between 1940 and 1962, and also starred Dorothy Lamour. They were, more than anything else, conduits for ad-libbed lines and playful barbs Bing and Bob would sling at…

You’re listening to Pearl Bailey from 1946 and you’re on the Sound Beat. Pearl made her Broadway debut that year, performing “It’s a Woman’s Prerogative” in St. Louis Woman. Though audiences weren’t enamored of the play, her performance marked the beginning of a decades-long love affair between Bailey and the American public. That “special time tog…

Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan, and nicknamed Lady Day. This 1946 recording of “Big Stuff” represents something of an anomaly in her career. It emerged only multiple, vigorous recording sessions. Her difficulties in the studio seemed to mirror those in her personal life, as Holiday was struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. The song itself was co…

Alright, hope we didn’t over bill it. But I mean, it’s insurance, we had to liven it up somehow. The very first auto insurance policy was sold by Travelers Insurance to Dr. Truman Martin of Buffalo NY in February of 1898. It was very likely to protect his car from accidents involving horses. It’s perhaps impossible to relate the role horses played …

Rock historians attribute the term “Rock and Roll” to radio dj Allen Freed in 1951. And while he set a name to that combo of rhythm, blues, country, jazz that got Elvis wagging his hips around, he wasn’t the first to put the words together. The origins of the term are nautical…17th-century sailors would describe ship’s movements as rocking and roll…

Censorship has been a big issue in the U.S. since, well, before there was a U.S. You’re on the Sound Beat. The first song officially banned on our soil was “A Song Made Upon the Election of New Magistrates To the City”, written by John Peter Zenger, owner of the first printing press in the colonies. Seems King George didn’t appreciate the mocking o…

For those who celebrate it, the big day is here. Many parents are bleary-eyed and sipping coffee while the kids riot in merry madness. But short as it was, your night was probably more restful than old Ebenezer Scrooge’s. Our gift to you: Scrooge’s Awakening, an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder released in 1914. And for your stocking: listen to the who…

The story goes like this: Fats Waller, the great stride pianist, is playing in a club when he spots Art Tatum walk through the door. Waller stops, turns to the audience and announces: “I just play the piano, but God is in the house tonight.” Perhaps no pianist before or since has equaled Tatum’s technical and rhythmic mastery, harmonic imagination,…

Carl Sandburg once called Ives “the mightiest ballad singer of this or any other century.” But his fellow performers might have described him with slightly different words. We’ve talked quite a bit on the show about careers that suffered during the McCarthy /blacklisting era. We haven’t talked about any that made it through unscathed. When the Sena…

Frederick Cook claimed to reach the North Pole in 1908, which would make him the first man to do so. And while some believed him, not enough did. You’re listening to a 1910 recording of….Robert F. Peary. History books credit him with the Pole’s discovery in 1909. So why the uncertainty? The entire north polar region is sea, covered by floating ice,…

Niccolo Paganini was the Jim Morrison of his day. He partied, drove the ladies wild, and was even rumored to have dabbled in the occult. Paganini was a violin virtuoso. He could play three octaves across four strings. Ask your local fiddler; that’s all but impossible. Paganini’s seemingly supernatural talents made him a celebrity, but also inspired…

Yup there it is. You know that feeling you get whether you’re in church, or a meeting, or somewhere where you really shouldn’t be laughing? Where you just can’t…quite…stop? The Okeh Laughing Record was recorded in Germany and released in 1923, and was an immediate seller, hitting the Billboard charts and reached number eight. It wasn’t listed as a …

You’re listening to Peetie Wheatstraw on the keys, playing Crazy With the Blues from 1936. Wheatstraw left an indelible mark on the St. Louis blues scene. He was known for that trademark “woo woo boy”, and of course his rather laid-back policy towards proper word formation. In fact, fellow blues great Blind Teddy Darby once overheard an audience me…

This live version of “25 Minutes to Go” is from Johnny Cash’s 1968 Columbia LP At Folsom Prison. The song gives a minute-by-minute description of a man awaiting the hangman’s noose. Two thousand Folsom prisoners attended Cash’s famed performance at the prison a year earlier; however, Death Row residents were not allowed. On performing a song about …

Richard Adler and Jerry Ross wrote the song “Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)” for the 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees. RCA Victor released this recording that year, with Dinah Shore singing and Henri René conducting. Inspiration for the character in this Tony Award-winning production came from notorious dancer and actress Lola Montez. Born in Ir…

William McKinley was as popular as presidents come, a saying that may need to be adjusted for inflation. On September 6th, 1901, Leon Czolgosz waited in line to meet the president at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo NY. He fired two shots into McKinley’s stomach, and while the president battled his wounds for more than a week, he finally succ…

A mother’s lament that perfectly encapsulated American anti-war sentiment. You’re on the Sound Beat. The Peerless Quartette recorded I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier in January of 1915. Alfred Bryan wrote the lyrics, and they drew a sharp line between those who supported the US entering the Great War and those who opposed. The opposition: paci…

Legend has it this song came to Williams while with fiancé Billie Jean Horton. Just driving around, talking about standard fiancé stuff…like, his ex-wife. You’re on the Sound Beat. While telling his future bride about his former’s infidelities, he cried out that one day Audrey’s “Cheatin’ Heart” would pay. A hit was born, and, probably, so was a di…

Hughes Mearns wrote “Antigonish” in 1910. Composers Harold Adamson and Bernard Hanighen added the melody to the poem and crafted the song “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There” in 1939…and picked up songwriting credits for doing so. In July of that year, Glenn Miller, his orchestra, and Tex Beneke released this record on the Bluebird label. The poem’s e…

It’s that age old tale of love and marriage…and money. You’re listening to the Opening Overture of Franz Lehar’s 1910 operetta Der Graf von Luxemburg. We are often our own harshest critics; before it’s debut, Lehar called the piece ‘Sloppy work, completely useless.’ Despite his opinion, the play ran for 299 straight performances in its original run…

Considered one of the most influential saxophonists in history, Lester “Prez” Young succeeded Coleman Hawkins at the height of the swing era. You’re on the Sound Beat He’s backed by his quintet on the piece, as he plays over the standard 12 bar blues. But much like his famous predecessor’s breakthrough recordings, the song lacks a clear lead melody…

Perry Bradford wrote Crazy Blues and the great Sophie Tucker was originally slated to record. When she was unable to make the session due to illness, Bradford convinced record execs to let jazz singer Mamie Smith fill in. Here she is on that OKEH label recording from 1920. That last minute substitution would prove historic, marking the first time a…

Sholom Secunda was a songwriter, not a fisherman. But he could tell you all about the “one that got away.” When Secunda sold a catchy Yiddish tune to a publisher in 1932, he did so for $30, or about $500 today. But when a-relatively-unknown trio of sisters released the song six years later, it went on to sell millions. Here are the Andrews Sisters …

Few today recognize the name Euday Bowman, yet during ragtime’s heyday Bowman’s 12th Street Rag was one of the most well recognized tunes around. He wrote the tune in 1897, and over the next half century, it made a lot of money for a lot of people…uh, Bowman not among them. Though “the Rag” was credited with reinvigorating ragtime, made famous by j…

When you think of early aviators, names like Wright, Earhart and Lindbergh probably spring to mind. But unless you’re a confessed aviaphile, names like Cole, Fitzmaurice and von Hünefeld probably do not. You’re on the Sound Beat. When the three made an emergency landing in Greeley Island, Canada in 1928, they’d completed the first transatlantic fli…

Do not adjust your radio. It’s actually supposed to sound like this. You’re listening to Florence Foster Jenkins struggle her way through Lyadov’s The Musical Snuff Box. Jenkins was…just a bad singer. But she was also determined to be one. She ignored the early advice of her family and her husband…who would, incidentally, become her ex husband. (Ma…

Waltzing Matilda is one of Oz’s best loved songs and a common refrain at national sporting events. Peter Dawson is another Aussie favorite; the bass-baritone’s recording career spanned half a century. A Matilda, in this case, is a bag or sack, and to “Waltz Matilda” is to travel the countryside, or the bush, with a bag in tow. The song involves a h…

For listeners of a certain age, a song about King Tutankhamen immediately brings Steve Martin to the mind’s theater. His “King Tut” mock-reprimanded the commercialization of the Treasures of Tutankhamen exhibit that toured from 1976 to ’79. But this one, “Old King Tut”, was recorded in 1923, the year AFTER the ancient Pharaoh’s tomb was found. Howa…

You’re listening to Anchors Aweigh by the United States Naval Academy Band, and… You’re on the Sound Beat. Spelling seldom makes for great radio, but “Aweigh” in this case is spelled “A-W-E-I-G-H”, and it means that the anchors have been raised, and the ship is ready for action. It also makes this the perfect fight song for the US Naval Academy. Th…

This version of Partita Number 1 in B Flat Major was recorded by Walter Gieseking in 1950. It’s perhaps ironic that Bach’s compositions are celebrated worldwide; in his entire life he never strayed more than 200 miles from his birthplace of Eisenstadt, Germany. But his influence has been felt all over the globe, and through every generation since. …

Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five first recorded “Caldonia” in 1945. This recording is a rerelease from 1947, the year that Jordan and Moore divorced. Apparently, being sent to the hospital with stab wounds was Jordan’s idea of a dealbreaker. Though, there was one other deal to address: Jordan had listed Moore as the writer of “Caldonia”, enabling …

Django Reinhardt was a pioneer of European jazz, and one of the most influential guitarists of all time. But we almost never heard a note. In 1930 Reinhardt was an eighteen year-old gypsy living on the outskirts of Paris, playing jazz gigs while his wife made and sold paper flowers. One evening an overturned candle caught a flower and set their car…

Square dancing evolved from folk dances of several different countries. It provided early American settlers with welcomed socialization, a respite from the loneliness of the frontier. And it’s instantly recognizable when you hear the caller shout out directions, whether you’ve seen it on tv or do-si-doed yourself. This is the Blue Ridge Duo with an…

In the 1920s and 30s, boxing was one of the most popular sports in the country. It and other forms of entertainment provided cheerful moments of respite from the gloom the Depression cast over the nation. In the movies and on radio, the public clamored for heroes like Superman and the Lone Ranger. But in the boxing ring, James Braddock proved himse…

You’re listening to “the Cajun national anthem”, sung and…fiddled…by Harry Choates on a Modern Music 78, and… You’re on the Sound Beat. Choates initially recorded “Jole Blon” (translated as “pretty blonde”) in 1946 for Gold Star records. It served as the B side, but when a Houston-area DJ played it instead of the A side, Basile Waltz, the rendition…

All Shook Up was the top song of 1957, and Elvis Presley’s second biggest hit ever. He’s backed here by the Jordanaires, and he’s on guitar and percussion at the same time. That sound right there? That’s Elvis slapping on the back of his Martin D-28. It’s believed manager Colonel Parker had something to do with getting the King a cowriting credit o…

You’re listening to Walter Huston recite the words of Walt Whitman in a Decca recording from 1947 and… You’re on the Sound Beat. Whitman published his famous elegy to Abraham Lincoln in “Sequel to Drum-Taps”, an 1865 pamphlet containing 18 poems about the American Civil War as well as “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”. Who said self-publis…

You’re listening to Edward M. Favor who recorded Mary and the Lamb to cylinder in 1892. But…it wasn’t the first recording of the poem…as a matter of fact, Edison himself used the first couplet as the first test recording on his phonograph invention, in 1877. The famous nursery rhyme was published in 1830, written by New Hampshire schoolteacher Sara…

Rocket 88 is one of many songs credited as the first in Rock and Roll history. It’s also one of the first to use guitar distortion…but, not on purpose. The story goes like this…in 1951, as Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats made their way to the recording studio to record Rocket ’88, the guitar amp’s woofer was damaged. One band member claims it wa…

Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, was twice convicted: once for trying to kill a man, and once for following through with it. After the first, he wrote a song of appeal to the governor of Texas, Pat Neff. Neff, incidentally, had vowed never to grant a pardon as governor. He did though, in 1925, but he might not have bothered. Less than 5 years …

You’re on the Sound Beat, listening to Act 2, Scene 4 of Euridice, based on the story of Orpheus and Euridice, from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”. It is one of the first operas. Period. The genre’s origins came about as a result of the Florentine Camerata, an organization of Florence’s finest musicians, thinkers, etc, that met at Count Giovanni de Bardi’s…

You’re listening to Big Maceo, a pioneer of Chicago Blues, and you’re on the Sound Beat. Big Maceo, also known as Maceo Merriweather, recorded Worried Life Blues in 1941. It was released by Bluebird Records. He’s accompanied by the legendary Tampa Red on guitar. As is often the case, this traditional song was inspired by an earlier one, Someday Bab…

You’re on the Sound Beat. That singer you hear…what’s your mental image? An elderly woman? A young boy? How about… a 44 year old man? This recording represents the end of a very weird period in music’s long, weird history. Alessandro Moreschi was the last of the castrati, opera singers who had been (ahem) castrated before puberty. That’s one way ar…

This is “Stealin’ Stealin”, recorded by The Memphis Jug Band in 1928. It was one of the first recordings released by the Grateful Dead, on Scorpion records in June 1966. The band known for jamming, among other things, had their roots in jug band music. In fact, founding members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Ron “Pig Pen” McKernan spent their pre-Dead …