Since these sorts of lists generally just give me a headache...the result
of promiscuous musical attachmenets I guess...I've avoided comment on mopst
of the interesting discussion. (No headache detected.)
But a few late throw-in points:
I think David C. is dead on in answering Tera's question about Jolsen.
There was a REAL generational cut-off there; because Jolsen was absolutely
worshipped by my grandparents' WWI East Coast kids' /flapper
generation...(moreso in their case , I suspect, since they were Hebraic,
and he was one of those rare sexy Jewish heroes--like Hank Greenburg
later)...
And that notion of sexiness really doesn't transcend time, does it! (Not
unusual in the history of lust.)...
But the stagey and overdone aspect David hit on is part of this--Jolsen's
always "selling" the song..and that's a direct result of his history in
turn of the century live town-by-town, one-shot only vaudeville and even
minstelry..It was meant to be large, it was mant to be hot, it was meant
to be seen live--it was FOR the stage, just once-- and he wasn't gonna let
any new-fangle microphone (or talkie movie!) stand in the way of his style.
Jerry Lee Lewis ALWAYS claims Jolsen as a predecessor, like Jimmie Rodgers,
as a singing "stylist"...So here's the irony: It was exactly Jolsen's
exhuberant overkill extroversion the 1918 generation found sexy--and the
place where that would re-emerge for white folks e (then, as in Jolsen's
time, as a crossing of the line into what was seen as a more black-like
sexual openness) was in in rockabillies like Jerry Lee and Elvis!
Bing Crosby's absolutely important and endlessly influential style went the
opposite way--to the restraint and introverted personalness of up to the
mike singing--which also led to his famous "laid back" standing in a golf
sweater style of physical performance...From John McCormack stagey Irish
tenor style to Bing American --now THERE's a birth of the "cool"!...Which
is forever with us....and is both influenced by and ON other trends in
black vocals. In a way, Elvis had the ability, like s other full-range
singers (see Sinatra, Brother Ray, etc.) , to marry and even play off the
cool and hot things, the holding in and letting go... like the Spanish
dance influence on the Texas 2-step. The restraint's the sexy point there.
But in rock and roll the simmering volcano eventually must erupt!
Meanwhile, "briefly", I've loved the music of Johnny Cash for over 30 years
and will stanbd second to no one as an admirer of his...his influence on
our little world of outlaw/alt.country is huge, on country at large, large
but not endless, and on rock and roll minor at most.
Bob Dylan has to make the top ten (but not above Bing or Armstrong or Elvis
or T-Bone Walker (good call Joe) for the very notion of delivering POP
music intended to have impact on the head as well as the heart and nether
parts...in the course of doing that, he delivered the notion of presenting
an ALBUM's worth of significant cuts, paving the way for the death of the
single sensibility I was saluting here last week. This is of lasting
impact.
PS: You can't find your way to either Charlie Parker or Elvis Presley
without going through those Kansas City territory bands...you wind up there
looking for the birth of R&B, which would be a key moment in 20th century
American music history. You can say it's Louis Jordan's Tympany Five...but
it's in some place in the Benny Moten/Count Basie world, where onee bunch
of guys run off to form seriously cretaive, even classical and
intellectual be bop/progressive jazz (after playing R&B, usually!) and
another set go off to build raucus R&B dumb repeitive sax honking dance
music god bless it...
But who do you nominate? Count Basie? Big Joe Turner? (Find me a better
rock and roll or shouting blues singer!)..
Or do we ignore these St. Louis and Kansas City types and turn to
Illinois Jacquet and Lionel Hampton in NYC?)
I told you I wouldn't have much to say about this stuff. Now I have a
headache.
Barry M.
