poptimists | Pop Open: Hi Dere From The Atom Age

The fifties group - REVEALED:

TRACK ONE: Odetta - "All The Pretty Little Horses" - I first heard this song, which I think is a traditional one, in the version by English underground spooksters Current 93 - obviously Odetta's rich moan is a different beast entirely from David Tibet's hobgoblin sharpness so it took me a listen or two to even spot the song I knew. This is a grower - too hushed on first listen but it's wormed its way into a fight for my second place.

TRACK TWO: Pink Martini - "Dosvedanya Mio Bombino" - Apparently the title means "Farewell My Bumblebee"! Thematically fifties rather than authentically fifties, this choice - jaunty cabaret pop with plenty of wit and lift and a strong lead vocal, which if I liked the cabaret style even slightly would surely pick up a vote. (Also it goes on a bit).

TRACK THREE: Les Paul And Mary Ford - "Smoke Rings" - Gorgeous woozy lounge guitar, pretty recognisable as Les Paul if you've heard any of his other stuff I guess, and perfectly matched by Mary Ford's sultriness. One of my favourite tracks in the whole competition so far, and (for me) an easy winner.

TRACK FOUR: Esquerita - "Maybe Baby" - Busy, lively, throaty run-through of a Buddy Holly song - love the little chirrups he's putting in, but for some reason I've never been much of a Holly fan, the emotions in his songwriting never quite reaches me. Liking the piano a lot though, it's between this and Odetta for my second.

Voting is open until 12 noon on Monday - the poll is beneath the cut below and you can get the tracks streamed here: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/pop-open-week-9/ . Voting has been pretty good so far - and is very close too - so do please play. (And don't be put off by the dreaded word "fifties"!)

[Poll #1060889]

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Incidentally, if I'd been in the Fifties And Before group I'd probably have gone for before, with either some 40s western swing or something from the Duke Ellington box set I've been listening to a lot. If it had been strictly 50s I'd have gone for "Snorin'" a rock-n-roll novelty by someone whose name I forget, with some great snoring noises.

I'm almost tempted to ask "What, in general, do you think of the Fifties?", cos I wonder if for a general audience it's so dominated by rock and roll that the diversity of the era gets dimmed?

A bit of googling reveals this to be - mostly - an original song. Apparently PM lead singer China Forbes and her sister wrote it, and it's about a man who for some reason bragged about being part Russian and part Italian. Hence the music has both slavic and Italian elements. Fair enough. But why the quote from "The Happy Wanderer" at the end (which is of German origin)?

Argh I am a fule, ignore that last comment - only C Forbes has a credit on DOSVEDANYA.

I like to look up the relevant artists on wikipedia, to gain some context. The Les Paul and Mary Ford wikipedia page is one of the funniest I've seen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul_and_Mary_Ford

I was really hoping to get this group, as I'm a big fan of pre-rock pop (Irving Berlin, Gershwin, etc.). I had several good candidates lined up for this group, but I'll save them for future orgafun, unless anybody is really interested.

Kudos to all. I didn't really like #2, which I though too cutesy, but I liked the other 3 and voted for 3 and 4.

Interesting thing about Les Paul, whose music I don't know well, is that he sounds like he's inserting country techniques into jazz and pop, but he doesn't come off sounding like western swing.

Les Paul is one of the most amazing people. Not only was he a great innovator in the development of the electric guitar, but also in the early development of guitar effects.

He still plays every Monday night at Iridium in New York City at the age of 92. A number of years ago after some illness (and I don't remember if it was a stroke or severe arthritis), he had to teach himself to play the guitar again with different fingering.

The guy also still has a wicked sense of humor in an interview.

Isn't Esquerita famous for being wilder than Little Richard, or is that someone else? In this one his gruffness just makes him weak, which is too bad, because I love the New Orleans, er, bounce (and intricacy) he's accompanied by, and I like the idea of a wild shot at a Holly, who always sounded at ease and off-the-cuff, himself.

Not just wilder, but the man from whom Little Richard nicked his whole style - piano, look and all. Little Richard tones it down - drops the extraordinary dischords, shrinks the bouffant, less make-up.

In my notes on the Odetta I said I couldn't tell if this was a woman or a man. Also thought the singing was strangely formal, with the vocal somewhere between serious "classical" and gospel (generally two very incompatible styles). The formality put me off, but the song itself is beautiful, and maybe the formality helps give it stateliness. Ended up in my second spot.

(Always had a block against Odetta; the formality is why. I was a Kingston Trio fan, myself. They were funny.)

I haven't heard many Odetta recordings, but I saw her 'in concert' last year, and she works hard to offset the formality of her own performance by generating a communal vibe - e.g. by encouraging singing and clapping along on several numbers (indeed, ticking us in the audience off when we weren't joining in sufficiently robustly). But yes, other numbers were performed in an atmosphere of pin drop silence. So, rather than somewhere between "classical" and gospel it was more a case of veering wildly between the two.

Speaking of Kingston Trio, had I been in this group, my 50s-and-before choice would have been "Coocoo-U" (from 1959 I believe.) It would have been worth the risk of heard-before notches because the song continues to turn frowns upside down on anyone who hasn't heard the song before, with or without Kingston Trio familiarity. The song is, mysteriously enough, one of their rare single-only tracks that's only available on only one of a gazillion greatest hits and the ginormous The Kingston Trio: The David Guard Years box set, and not on any of their albums.

I don't know if I've ever heard it!

My favorite is "Little Maggie," from their very first album. One of their rushing banjo numbers, energetic and high-pitched.

t0m, is there a policy on comments containing download links? I realize they are fine in the subject of a thread, but I don't want to cross any lines if they were drawn.

I'd love to link the song, and I don't want to go too much into details about "Coocoo-U" because there are many. In brief, the song is quite an esoteric departure for the Trio (and I already consider the Trio intrinsicly odd in the Guard years.) "Coocoo-U"'s very much rooted in Latin and African beats, especially made clear in the bridge. The vocals (which I think are done by Nick Reynolds aka "the short one" here) sound very nervous, sung/spoken in an odd meter that predates Devo's singing style 20 years or so. All said, "Coocoo-U" is very much a Kingston Trio song. Unfortunately, they barely have any other songs quite like this.

The best way to link a song is to put it in its own post and friends-lock the thread - it'll get more attention that way too!

Pop Open: Hi Dere From The Atom Age

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Pink Martini

Re: Pink Martini

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I met her in a club down in old Soho

I met her in the Queens Hall in old Edinburgh

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