Ever listened to Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester? A workmate introduced him to me recently and his singing gives me the giggles. Raabe is a German singer and the style is 20’s and 30’s band music, regardless of what he sings- covers of old songs, original music or covers on modern hits. Listening to him makes it very easy to imagine the music coming from an old gramophone. He looks the part too, don’t you think? He reminds me a bit of Fred Astaire, actually.
Tea With the Vintage Baroness. brought my attention to Pink Martini last year and now I pass that attention on. Pink martini is a 13-man band with 16 years and four albums’ under their belt.
To quote them: “Pink Martini draws inspiration from the romantic Hollywood musicals of the 1940s or ‘50s … with a more global perspective. We write a lot of songs … but we also champion songs like Ernesto Lecuona’s “Andalucia”or “Amado mio”from the Rita Hayworth film “Gilda”or “Kikuchiyo to mohshimasu (My name is Kikuchiyo)”made famous in the 1960s by the great Japanese group Hiroshi Wada & His Mahina Stars. In that sense we’re a bit like musical archeologists, digging through recordings and scores of years past and rediscovering beautiful songs.”
I'm a little boring at the moment, I know. I got a cold that took it, for me, predictable course, and developed into bronchitis. I'm not a very happy girl at the moment. So I hope you will excuse a new music post in such a short time- I have spent a lot of time on Youtube lately.
If Andrew Sisters makes me happy, Kurt Weill's music is a bit more complex for me. I found it a bit here and there- it took me a while to realise that a couple of songs I had hear here and there actually had the same composer. The very first was a version of Surabaya Johnny, with a then very popular Swedish rock band, Imperiet.
Back then I was very attracted by the sense of longing and desperation that was conveyed and that I think that you can still here, even disregarding the rather 80's sound.
I have talked about Puppini Sisters that uses The Andrew Sisters as inspiration and I’ve talked about Brox Sisters who came before, so I think it’s about time to actually post about The Andrew Sisters.
Thanks to one of my workmates who has a wonderful knack of finding old music on YouTube (He once spent a whole Saturday when we worked playing only different versions of Plaisir D’Amour), I discovered an American group called Brox Sisters, who had their heyday in the 20’s and 30’s. Working first on Broadway and later in Hollywood, evidently doing a good job in both places. They were sisters, Bobbe, Lorayne and Patricia, though they were born Josephine, Eunice and Kathleen Brock. They last sung together in 1939, but I feel they can fit into this blog anyway, as people in the 40’s didn’t stop listening to music just because it was recorded in another decade.
I “found” Billie Holiday in my early teens, quite by chance. It was not the kind of music I listened to back then. It probably ages me something dreadful, but I guess Depeche Mode sums it up quite well. And then, on the radio I heard a voice that just spoke to me and I scribbled down the name and hunted down a record. A really bad quality “Greatest hits”, but I listened to it again and again. “Lady Day” didn’t have the biggest voice, but she sang true. So when a lot of the music I loved then have faded away (no, not Depeche Mode, but most of the other band that was big then), I still listen to Billie. She’s classic.
The song I heard? Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do. A lyric that I suspect appeals to teenagers of any age.
I promise that I won't keep flooding with posts like this. It's just that I have written most on all three when I felt too befuddled by cold to post. Hence this many in one day.
I usually listen to music when I sew and often, if not always, what I listen to is inspired of what I'm sewing on. Mozart and Bach when sewing 18th century for example. Inspiring music from the 1940's isn't hard to find, especially not with Spotify, but don't you agree that it could be fitting to listen to reproduction music when sewing reproduction clothes? Soi if you don't already know about them, I strongly urge you to listen to The Puppini Sisters. If you think that they are inspired by The Andrews Sisters you are not wrong, but they are also influenced by The Boswell Sisters, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Kate Bush, Mike Flowers, Joan Crawford, The Smiths, and Tom Waits. They make covers on 1940's songs, but also modern or own material, but they always sound like it from the forties. So far there have been three albums, Betcha Bottom Dollar, The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo and Christmas with the Puppini Sisters.
