Music?

Well, I didn't have gold ones but, light blue with some kind of "Aztec" pattern on them... they were very, very horrible! I'm ashamed to say I've worn such a think in my life!

Yes Jake, those are indeed Golden Era! The only thing "Golden" about the 90's were the pants!lol

=WR=

Wild Root said:

Well, I didn't have gold ones but, light blue with some kind of "Aztec" pattern on them... they were very, very horrible! I'm ashamed to say I've worn such a think in my life!

Yes Jake, those are indeed Golden Era! The only thing "Golden" about the 90's were the pants!lol

=WR=

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That's very brave of you to admit that :eusa_clap and I'm shuddering just imagining them.

Well, I didn't have gold ones but, light blue with some kind of "Aztec" pattern on them... they were very, very horrible! I'm ashamed to say I've worn such a think in my life!

Yes Jake, those are indeed Golden Era! The only thing "Golden" about the 90's were the pants!

=WR=

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And 40 years form now some sucker will buy them from you for a song and then rush home to show them off on The Hammer-Pants Lounge.

They would if I still had them... I think I wore them out and then trashed them. We all will sleep much better now!lol

=WR=

Wild Root said:

Well guys, you'll all die when you hear this but, in the years of 1989-1992 I was an MC Hammer fan! Yeah, Can't touch this!

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YESS!! ROOT! You just ARE the MAN! lol :eusa_clap Bravo for admitting that! Now that song's gonna be stuck in my head the rest of the night.

BTW,
I don't know WHO this next halloween "Freddy from the Hood" picture is of... (and there was NEVER an MP3 made that night...)



speaking of Hammer, check this out, here he looks like he's stepping out to sing lead with The Drifters...



Anyway Thanks Root for the truth-or-dare moment.

Can't touch this,
- Cousin Hepcat

HAHAHAHAHHAHAH! Oh man, now you all know way to much about me!!!lol

Say, that's a cool photo of Hammer... he looks very classy there! I've never seen that one! You know, it's funny, on the off chance I hear one of his hits, I still enjoy it some what... it wasn't that bad.

=WR=

Wild Root said:

Amen brother!


Well, it's very interesting and you may know this already but, if you listen to some early Cab Calloway, there are many references to "Weed" or "Reefer" to make a modern day person surprised... I know I was! But, in the 20's and 30's, those were hard times and well, drugs were being used. Alcohol was mentioned in most songs of those days, most musicians drank and so did the people they played for.

By all means it was never as "In your face" as today's Rap music but, it sure isn't as squeaky clean as we'd like to think of it either.

=WR=

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You can see an interesting Cab Calloway "Reefer Man" video sequence in the W.C. Fields film "International House" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024183/
for 1933, it must have been fun for the film censors.

Then of course there was "Harry The Hipster Gibson" https://ssl46.pair.com/fisf/rhapsody/dvds.php?dvd=38
http://birdwalk1.tripod.com/Harry_The_Hipster.htm

Many years ago, I found a box of 78's that my parents had, one of the records was a Sidney Bechet recording of "Viper Mad", I used to get a kick out of kidding my parents that they had a song about smoking dope when they were young.

Wild Root said:

HAHAHAHAHHAHAH! Oh man, now you all know way to much about me!!!lol

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And, we Never Forget, Root! lol just kidding... what were we talking about?

Wild Root said:

Say, that's a cool photo of Hammer... he looks very classy there! I've never seen that one! You know, it's funny, on the off chance I hear one of his hits, I still enjoy it some what... it wasn't that bad.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've got a coworker who sometimes plays MP3's and occasionally will put on some I remember growing up, that's always fun. He even did a video once where he was dimension-warping into all kinds of strange places, one was a haunted house filled with zombies etc, then there was a trumpet break and the announcer, "Attention Ladies and Gentleman, the Star ATtraction of 1929!" and zoomed out to him in a 20's tux on stage at the Cotton Club, pretty accurate even down to the giant-sized potted ferns.. all except of course his "hammer-dance"!

Absinthe_1900 said:

Many years ago, I found a box of 78's that my parents had, one of the records was a Sidney Bechet recording of "Viper Mad", I used to get a kick out of kidding my parents that they had a song about smoking dope when they were young.

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Too funny, Absinthe! lol




Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

My favorites

Hi,

these are my favorite artists (mixed in performers/composers/arrangers etc., just like they occured to me now):

¬? Frank Sinatra
¬? Sammy Davis Jr.
¬? Dean Martin
¬? Ella Fitzgerald
¬? Count Basie
¬? Juan Garcia Esquivel
¬? Billy May
¬? Bing Crosby
¬? Nelson Riddle
¬? Duke Ellington
¬? Jackie Gleason
¬? Peggy Lee
¬? Ray Anthony
¬? Tony Randall (a few words about him: Of course he mainly was a -great- actor & only made a few albums, but they're great examples for 30's swing and although he didn't have such a brilliant voice like Crosby, Sinatra & Co., he made his few records with such noticeable dedication, e.g. "Warm & Wavery" of 1967)
¬? Andr?© Kostelanetz
¬? and another Andr?©: Mr. Previn
¬? Henry Mancini

Sure I've forgotten so many greats I love...

Kind regards,

Andreas

Getting back to the sub topic (well poor old Taylord obviously did a runner long ago).....

It‚Äôs hardly a secret that a great many jazz musicians were drug users or heavy drinkers, and hardly surprising that dope and booze songs are an important sub-category of jazz lyrics, as were risqu?© sexual lyrics. But the problem with comparing hip-hop to jazz is that rap is essentially about lyrics, whereas jazz is primarily an instrumental form.

A more valid comparison would be between classic blues and hip-hop, and in fact there is very little in hip-hop that you won’t find in golden era blues, which apart from the drugs drink and sex often includes shockingly casual references to violence against women, like Robert Johnson’s 32-20, a paean of praise to the gun with which he intends to murder his woman. (Why? because he “sent for her” and she ignored him. The cheeky bitch! )

What is missing in blues but found in hip-hop is a sub-genre of forthright political comment - for a parallel to that you have to turn to Country. In fact Country is in many ways the genre of American music that is closest to hip-hop, a fact largely lost on their respective audiences but NOT on many of the musicians. There has always been a strong political strand in country (usually, but by no means always, leftist) that goes back to its very roots, when several of its leading stars were members of the IWW.

However, in one respect Hip-hop is definitely more in-yer-face than earlier musical forms……and that’s the use of bad language. But that is really an issue of laxer record company censorship. Live performances of Country, Jazz and Blues in the Golden Age sometimes included bad language, and very occasionally stuff sneaked past the record censors. My fave is the Modern Mountaineers Everybody’s Truckin’, in which the chorus repeats “trucking’” about ten times (as in “everybody’s truckin (truckin truckin) everybody’s truckin” etc etc.) You guessed it, they keep randomly inserting the F word and the censors never noticed.

The Mountaineers were a Western Swing band, and WS in particular could be pretty cutting edge. Like the wonderful Hartmans Heartbreakers, with breathy female vocalist Bonny Lou rendering such classic lines as “come on daddy don’t be so mean, reach upon the shelf and get the Vaseline”. There was even a whole sub-category of gay western swing. Patsy Montana’s backing band the Prairie Ramblers recorded some of this as The Sweet Violet Boys (my favourite Violet Boys track is called “I like to Eat”. It’s about eating fruit. Quite.)

The plain fact is that shock horror at the state of modern popular music goes back way beyond all this, right back as far as documents take us. The main subject matter of European folk song is sex/love, drink/drugs, violence/crime/rebellion, and the authorities were wetting themselves about it way back in the middle ages. It is also the case that in all eras older forms of popular music often seem much less threatening, and even quaint, because the context and codes are unfamiliar to later generations, and because it has become sanctified by age, familiarity, and the fact that society didn’t actually fall apart back then after all.

In 17th and 18th century England they tried to institute a system of censorship they were so worried about the content of the broadside ballads that were the main means by which the poor got the news. Yet several generations of 20th century English schoolkids were presented with this stuff (albeit heavily bowdlerised) as "folk song", a morally uplifting alternative to first jazz and then rock and roll. Thus it was that my deeply conservative primary schoolmistress taught us several songs glorifying a variety of 18th century hoodlums, including the highwayman Dick Turpin. He was presented to us as a gallant masked hero riding the moonlit roads in a fairytale land of yore, in reality he was a murderous thug whose gang specialised in raiding lonely houses and roasting the inhabitants over fires (if you actually listen to the song of course it presents him as neither of these things, but as a social rebel and enemy of the rich. I’m sure this was lost on her).

The deeper I get into older forms of popular music the more I keep thinking: Plus ca change.

P.S. ROOT.....you are a brave man to confess your past misdeamenours. One of my many hats off to you Sir!

Favor Nina Simone, myself.

To try to get back to the actual topic, in case the author decides to come back. . .

How about a playlist suggestion?

1. Take 5 ~ Dave Brubeck Quartet
2. Electric Relaxation ~ A Tribe Called Quest
3. Dig This Vibe ~ DJ Krush
4. Escapism (Get Free) ~ Digable Planets
5. Mack The Knife ~ Dominic Halpin and The Honey Bees (my choice of cover)
6. I Got A Woman ~ Ray Charles
7. Rock This Town ~ Brian Setzer Orchestra
8. Danke Scoen ~ Wayne Newton
9. Under My Skin ~ Frank Sinatra/Bono
10. Lover Man (King Britt's Speakeasy Mix) ~ Dizzy Gillespie
11. Loungin' ~ Guru
12. Straight, No Chaser ~ Thelonius Monk
13. I'm A Man ~ Bo Diddley
14. Boom Boom ~ John Lee Hooker

I've got some covers in there because I find it may be more accessible for a younger audience or they are my preferred versions of the song. I do like the fat sound of "Rock This Town" by BSO as opposedto the Stray Cats and I happen to like the Bono/Sinatra thing simply because I do like U2's stuff through the mid-90's.

Most of these are pretty easy to find so burn 'em to a cd and then play in the car. It's only about 40 minutes worth of music so use it as inspiration to mix other stuff. I played a similar list while driving my younger cousin back to Chicago after she visited me in Champaign. I had to keep the music interspersed with things she liked and she ended up asking for the CD I burned to hold onto some of the stuff.