NRR Project: Frankie Yankovic and his Yanks play 'Just Because' (1948)

 

NRR Project: “Just Because”

Composed by Joe Shelton, Sydney Robin, and Bob Shelton

Performed by Frankie Yankovic and his Yanks

Recorded 1948

2:59

I could not do better than Bob Dolgan’s expert essay on this subject. Read it here!

Frankie Yankovic was an inspired accordionist, and his polkas appealed to the big Slavic audiences of the Midwest. This tune made him nationally popular!

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Manteca.

 

 

NRR Project: Gabby Pahinui plays 'Hula Medley' (1947)

 

NRR Project: “Hula Medley”

Performed by Gabby Pahinui

Recorded 1947

2:58

Another entry that I’ve never heard of and have nothing cogent to discuss regarding it. Read J.W. Junker’s great essay on it at theNational Recording Registry. It’s a beautiful piece of music! And Pahinui is still remembered as the King of Slack Key Guitar.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Frankie Yankovic and his Yanks play Just Because.

NRR Project: Louis Kaufman plays Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' (1947)

 

NRR Project: The Four Seasons

Composed by Antonio Vivaldi

Performed by Louis Kaufman and the Concert Hall String Orchestra

Recorded: Dec. 28-31, 1947

37:18

For a while, Baroque music was in eclipse. It was the accepted art music of its day, wrought by musical giants such as Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). However, soon after their demise classical music evolved into new forms – the more sweeping, large-ensemble complexities of the Classical Period (Haydn, Mozart, et al).

Eighty years would pass before Felix Mendelssohn resurrected Bach’s reputation with a performance of his St. Matthew’s Passion in 1829. Suddenly, Baroque was back. Old scores were rediscovered. The tendency to perform this work on authentic period instruments, utilizing antiquated performance practices, grew. The “clarity, balance, and objectivity” of Baroque music seemed a refuge from the excesses of the then-current Romantic period of music (Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Verdi, Wagner, Mahler).

One of those champions of Baroque music was violinist Louis Kaufman (1905-1994). He had already established himself as one of Hollywood’s great musicians when he received the call that spurred him to record Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” set of violin concertos, first published in 1725. He quickly became a Vivaldi enthusiast. A complete and exhaustive analysis of Kaufman, Vivaldi, and this recording is penned by Harumi Furuya at the National Recording Registry site.

Kaufman’s rendition is crisp, precise, even a tad dry. However, this inaugural recording is exemplary in every other way – in contrast to many, many ways succeeding groups and soloists have adulterated the composition. The comeback of Vivaldi was mightily welcome.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Gabby Pahinui performs Hula Medley.

 

NRR Project: The Fairfield Four sing 'Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around' (1947)

 

“Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around”

Traditional

Performed by the Fairfield Four

Recorded 1947

2:25

Wow. Another great group I would not have heard from save for this survey.

First, you must read Opal Louis Nations’ essay on this group at the National Recording Registry. It gives a specific and detailed history of the quartet from its beginnings in 1921 down to the present day.

The Fairfield Four represent a tradition of gospel music that is sung a capella. This unique genre can be said to have originated in 1871 with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who first set Christian spiritual songs in multiple-part harmony, codifying a tradition that would move into Black churches everywhere across the country in the ensuing decades.

The music derived from popular hymns, termed spirituals. Gospel tunes were different: urgent, fast-paced, emotionally intense – possessed of a frantic, joyous spirit meant to infuse the listeners with a religious experience. It is song as worship. Vocal facility was encouraged; the expression was heard as an offering to God; the more beautiful, the better. Soon, expert ensembles would perform every Sunday – and then, gradually, in other contexts.

The Fairfield Four (who were five sometimes) was one of many groups who came up through exposure on the radio; this vital outlet spread their name across the country. This recording contains the amazing long-held notes of lead tenor Samuel McCrary. Here, the group chugs through the number, clearly elucidating their complex harmonies as they testify on behalf of their faith.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Louis Kaufman performs Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

NRR Project: 'Four Saints in Three Acts' (1947)

 

“Four Saints in Three Acts”

Music by Virgil Thomson; lyrics by Gertrude Stein

Performed by Virgil Thomson et al

Premiered Feb. 7, 1934

Recorded June 1947

1 hour, 47 minutes

A whimsical piece of pure music – as its libretto makes no sense.

The author of the piece was the famous writer, American expatriate Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) She was known for her experimental, nonsensical, repetitive literary creations. She used language for its sound qualities only, meaning that her works have no plots and indeed no linearity. It consists of repeated phrases, as in the opera’s opening:

“To know to know to love her so. Four saints prepare for saints. It makes it well fish. Four saints it makes it well fish. Four saints prepare for saints it makes it well well fish it makes it well fish prepare for saints.”

And, later: “Saint Teresa seated and not standing half and half of it and not half and half of it seated and not standing surrounded and not seated and not seated and not standing and not surrounded not not surrounded and not not not seated not seated not seated not surrounded not seated and Saint Ignatius standing standing not seated Saint Teresa not standing not standing and Saint Ignatius not standing standing surrounded as if in once yesterday. In place of situations.”

She wrote the piece in 1927. In 1928, Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) set it to music. Thomson, originally from Kansas City, moved to Paris in 1925. There he studied and wrote music until 1940, when he returned to America.

Thomson set the piece for many voices, including various saints, two separate choruses, and a “Commere” and a “Compere.” The music is open and upbeat, in chords remindful of those found in hymns. Since the words make no sense, Thomson is free to create his own, quite beautiful chain of solos, duets, and choruses, liberated from the need to make sense.

The opera was first performed in 1934, utilizing a Black cast. Thirteen years later, many of the principals reunited with Thomson to record the work for posterity. It’s a pleasant if nonsensical exercise in tunefulness.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around.

NRR Project: 'The Churkendoose' (1947)

 

NRR Project: “The Churkendoose”

Composed by Alec Wilder; lyrics by Ben Ross Berenberg

Performed by Ray Bolger

Recorded 1947

An amusing and sweet children’s record I’d never heard of. Read Holly Van Leuven’s essay on it at the National Recording Registry.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Four Saints in Three Acts.”

NRR Project: “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just as Bad)” (Sept. 14, 1947)

 

NRR Project: “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just as Bad)”

Composed by T-Bone Walker

Performed by T-Bone Walker, Lloyd C. Glenn, Bumps Myers, Teddy Buckner, Arthur Edwards, Oscar Lee Bradley

Recorded Sept. 14, 1947

2:25

T-Bone Walker was a phenomenon. Read Brian Bader’s essay on him at the National Recording Registry.

He was not the first to use the electric guitar. That honor goes to Chicagoan George Barnes, who played one his brother invented in 1931, when he was only 10 years old. Five years later, Walker was playing one in L.A. Oddly, he started off in the jazz scene there as a singer and dancer. By 1940, he was recording on electric guitar with his own small combos.

Composed and performed by himself, “Stormy Monday” is a blues standard. Walker’s cool, precise approach would influence immensely B.B. King and others.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: “The Churkendoose.”

NRR Project: Bill Monroe and 'Blue Moon of Kentucky'

 

NRR Project: “Blue Moon of Kentucky”

Composed by Bill Monroe

Performed by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys

Recorded 1947

2:06

First, read Richard D. Smith’s essay and Ricky Skaggs’ essayat the National Recording Registry. They are enthusiastic and comprehensive.

I can only approach this musical giant with awe. I mean, the guy invented bluegrass. Who else has birthed a genre?

Bill Monroe (1911-1996) got the mandolin because he was the youngest, and it was the least-valued instrument in the house. He quickly became a master of it, and began to create his own brand of music – based in old-time “hillbilly music” but fusing the best elements of blues and folk as well, melding into a new, soulful and expressive sound that proved incredibly popular.

By 1939, he was appearing on the Grand Ole Opry radio show regularly. He had a national platform for the performance of his unique craft. Bluegrass could be break-neck fast, or in this case heart-breakingly slow; it featured intertwining vocal harmonies, and bravura soloing. His enthusiastic, deeply felt intensity translated into the music and vitalized it, fascinating a generation on the radio. Soon aspiring groups in the same genre began to proliferate, creating bluegrass for further, ever-expanding mutations, fusing with jazz, avant-garde, and jam genres.

Monroe became a living legend. At least two dozen prominent bluegrass performers did time with Bill, in one way or another. His influence is still pervasive.

“Blue Moon of Kentucky” is charmingly simple, instantly memorable. In 3/4time it swings gently, meanwhile sending out a sad and forlorn “high lonesome” sound that is essential to the genre. It’s a lover’s lament, and states its case plainly. Love is gone, and the singer appeals to the heavens. The End. Its heartfelt sincerity sells it. This elemental song became a hit for Elvis Presley. Monroe re-recorded it afterwards in order to break into a similar 4/4 time passage a la Elvis. It remains his greatest achievement.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: “Call It Stormy Monday.”

NRR Project: Robert Shaw directs Bach's Mass in B minor (1947)

 

NRR Project: Mass in B-minor

Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach

Performed by Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Chorale

Recorded 1947

2 hours, 12 min.

This enormous work is a landmark in Western music, and Robert Shaw’s direction of this recording is rightly regarded as a landmark as well. Shaw’s comprehension of the text and his ability to evoke a vital and energized performance from any given ensemble is unparalleled.

First, read Nick Jones’ excellent essay on this piece at the National Recording Registry here. My comments can only reiterate his observations.

This was the ultimate expression of Bach’s prowess in vocal music, the summation of everything he had learned during his career. Compiled partly from previous compositions, this immense 27-movement piece runs for over two hours (its first use in an actual mass, in 2025, ran over three hours). Oddly for Bach, a staunch Lutheran, this work is in the form of a Catholic Mass.

The composer completed it near the end of his life, in the period 1748-1749, and never heard the piece performed in its entirety. In fact, the first complete performance did not take place until 1859. There were recordings of the Mass before Shaw’s, but his is considered definitive. Shaw studied the score, imposed its original instrumentation (previous incarnations were over-orchestrated) and stuck strictly to an orthodox interpretation of it. The result was issued as a 17-disc 78 r.p.m. record set.

Bach alternates large choral set-pieces with smaller solos, ensembles, and orchestral passages. To those with the time to listen to it in its entirety, it’s an out-of-body experience. Bach distills his religious experience into musical terms, and the soaring vocal lines transport the listener to a heavenly space. It feels like Bach is expressing through his music his view on God, life, reality, and everything.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Bill Monroe performs “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

NRR Project: Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech (March 6, 1946)

 

NRR Project: “Sinews of Peace” (aka “Iron Curtain”) speech

Written and delivered by Winston Churchill

Recorded March 6, 1946

46 min.

This speech marks the beginning of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and America and its allies.

World War II was not yet over a year when this speech was made. The United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union had formed a “Grand Alliance” to defeat Hitler’s Germany. Yet almost as soon as peace was declared, the USSR began to expand its sphere of influence, imposing political control on those territories it took over in the final months of fighting. Poland, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Czechoslovakia were all targeted. Russia had fought the Nazis the longest, and had suffered the most grievous losses, in the war. Now they were looking for security and influence.

Among the Allies, former British prime minister Winston Churchill was the first to observe and comment on this perceived danger. He identified the Soviet Union as the primary threat to peace and security. Therefore, he proposed an American/European alliance that would oppose the Russians. As America was presently the only country with an atomic bomb, he felt that the U.S. was the most powerful nation in the world, and the primary caretaker of freedom. He felt it necessary to urge the U.S. to impose a policy of “containment” of the Soviet threat.

Churchill, a strong anti-Communist, was invited to speak at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, which he did on March 5, 1946. A condition of his making the speech was the presence of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who attended. In front of a crowd of 1,500, Chruchill made a 45-minute speech that outlined the issue and warned of coming trouble with Russia.

Churchill was blunt, avowing that he would “try to make sure with what strength I have that what has gained with so much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory and safety of mankind.” He identified what he saw as the two major dangers remaining to the world: “war and tyranny.”

He proposed the creation of a United Nations fighting force to keep the peace. He also proposed the close cooperation of America and England in military matters. He then addressed tyranny, stating, “We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the United States and throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments to a degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every principle of democracy. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police force.” He was referring obliquely to the Soviets and their minions.

While professing to admire and respect the Soviets, Churchill nonetheless made this statement:

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Despite his politic expressions, Churchill clearly named the USSR as the new opponent of the friends of freedom. “Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.”

Churchill’s proposal was to face the Soviets with military preparedness, admonishing the crowd that the only thing Stalin respected was strength. And so the terms of the future conflict, which lasted 42 years, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, were set.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Robert Shaw leads a performance of Bach’s B-minor Mass.

NRR Project: Harry Partch, “U.S. Highball (A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip)”

 

NRR Project: “U.S. Highball (A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip)”

Composed by Harry Partch

Performed by the Gate 5 Ensemble

Recorded 1946

25:20

Harry Partch changed how I think about music.

When I was 12 or so, I checked out the album The World of Harry Partch from the Denver Public Library. It was in the Classical Music section.

I didn’t understand it. The manic drumming, the unharmonic melodies, the bizarre sounds, the comic lyrics. Finally I heard “Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow” and fell in love.

Partch is sui generis; there is no one following in his steps. In this he is like other bizarre composers I love, such as Ives, Satie, Moondog, Terry Riley, Frank Zappa, Steve Reich, and John Luther Adams. All iconoclasts, creating strange sound-objects that are hair-raising in their audaciousness and intensity, their just plain weirdness.

Harry Partch (1901-1974) made his own music. Literally. An aspiring composer, he kept rejecting the educational experiences music schools offered to him. He was searching for a sound that reflected the dense, complex, a-harmonic music he heard in the world, coming from machines, nature, and the mouths of those around him. In 1930, he burned all his compositions to date in a pot-bellied stove.

He devised a new scale, with 43 notes to it. He based his compositions on just intonation, a form of notation used in ancient Greece and Medieval times. No instruments of the day could accommodate his method of composing.

So he made his own instruments. The Chromelodeon, the Kithara, the Bloboy, Zymo-Xyl, Quadrangularis Reversum and more were tuned to Partch’s special frequencies.

But Partch was strapped for cash. He traveled as a hobo across the West. He could rarely assemble the instruments, the people, and the sheer time it took to teach his music. He lived on short-term grants and university appearances. Very few believed in his utterly new and confusing music. It featured percussion-grounded bursts of sounds and swooping, meandering melodic lines, clashing chords that sound like mistakes.

But when you pull back, you see that Partch is creating complex sound fields against which his musical gestures play themselves out. His narratives, whether self-written or taken from Chinese poetry, are acerbically voiced. His sound is wild, freewheeling, warm, expansive, open to the sky. His compositions have a tough, lean spirit. It’s hypnotic, engaging.

His “U.S. Highball: (A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip)” is exactly that – taken from his notebooks kept during his transcontinental hobo trip. Wisps of narrative, bits of conversations, the recitation of sign verbiage, pieces of advice, warnings from cops, pepper the music, sung, intoned. Marimbas play, harps strum, the percussion clatters on. We are on a train, plunging through Wyoming (“Stay out of Denver”). Partch captures a vernacular experience in a method uniquely suited to it.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech.

NRR Project: 'Jole Blon' (1946)

 

NRR Project: “Jole Blon”

Performed by Harry Choates

Recorded July 17, 1946

2:45

Again, I must defer to the National Recording Registry for its explanatory essay by Ryan Brasseaux, which you can read here.

This recording represents the breakthrough of Cajun music into the mainstream. Surprisingly popular, it ran high in the sales charts when it was released. It’s a typical love song, sorrowing over a lost woman. The lyrics:

Jolie blon, regardez donc quoi t'as fait

(Pretty blonde, look at what you've done)
Tu m'as quitte pour t'en aller
(You left me to go away)
Pour T'en aller avec un autre, oui, que moi
(To go away with another, instead of me)
Quel espoir et quel avenir, mais, moi, je vais avoir?
(What hope and what future am I going to have?)

Jolie blon, tu m'as laisse, moi tout seul
(Pretty blonde, you've left me all alone)
Pour t'en aller chez ta famille
(To go back to your family)
Si t'aurais pas ecoute tos les conseils de les autres
(If you had not listened to the advice of the others)
Tu serait ici-t-avec moi aujourd 'hui
(You would be here with me today)

Jolie blon, tu croyais il y avait just toi
(Pretty blonde, you thought there was just you)
Il y a pas just toi dans le pays pour moi aimer
(There is not just you in this land to love me)
Je peux trouver just une autre jolie blonde
(I can find another pretty blonde)
Bon Dieu sait, moi, j'ai un tas
(Good God knows, I have a lot)

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Harry Partch’s U.S. Highball.

 

 

NRR Project: 'Folk Songs of the Hills' (1946)

 

NRR Project: “Folk Songs of the Hills”

Performed by Merle Travis

Recorded 1946

34:23

Merle Travis (1917-1983) was the real deal. A songwriter, singer, and expert guitarist, he made his way up through the ranks of country artists and found enduring fame. He wrote “Sixteen Tons” and “Dark as a Dungeon,” both classics. Both can be found on this record.

At the time, Travis had a decent solo career going; additionally, he was a member of the Brown’s Ferry Quartet, a gospel group. He recorded “soundies,” short filmed performances that were played much like a jukebox. His reputation was solid.

Then his label, Capitol, asked him to record an album of folk songs. He came up with “Folk Songs of the Hills,” an eight-song album that featured traditional tunes as well as his own compositions.

His style is simple and straightforward, and he includes little verbal introductions to each of his selections, referring to the listeners as “boys and girls,” which make one think he made this record with children in mind. He performs “Nine Pound Hammer,” “John Henry,” and the gospel song “I Am a Pilgrim.”

The result is a primer on folk and folk-style music. These songs would be covered countless times by others, and would become standards in the American song book.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Harry Choates plays Jole Blon.

NRR Project: The Fred Allen Show (Oct. 7, 1945)

 

NRR Project: The Fred Allen Show

NBC Radio

Broadcast Oct. 7, 1945

30 min.

Fred Allen (1894-1956) was the funniest man in radio.

Jack Benny is the best-remembered of the radio comedians, but he was served by a staff of writers. For nearly 20 years, the dough-faced Fred Allen wrote, edited, and produced a comedy show that was, for a time, the highest-rated comedy program on the air.

Fred Allen was Boston-born, under the name of John F. Sullivan. He grew up hard, coming from an impoverished background and going to work at an early age. His workplace was an ideal springboard – it was a library. There he found a book on juggling, and taught himself how to do it.

Years of work in vaudeville followed. Allen gravitated to comedy, and soon was billing himself as “Freddy James, the World’s Worst Juggler.” Allen’s sharp, incisive wit propelled him onto Broadway, where he worked his way up to starring roles in the comedy revues of the day.

Finally, in 1933 radio came calling. For nine years, Allen created an hour-long comedy show once a week – a monumental task that found him working 12-hour days and 80-hour weeks. Gradually, he built up a cadre of talented voice actors who could handle any verbal challenge.

Beginning in December 1942, Allen created the popular “Allen’s Alley” segment, in which he went from door to door to ask various eccentrics about a topic of the day. Minerva Pious played Mrs. Nussbaum, a Jewish New Yorker; Parker Fennelly played Titus Moody, a dour New Englander. Alan Reed, later the voice of Fred Flintstone, played poet Falstaff Openshaw.

Also in 1942, the sponsors and NBC cut Allen’s show from an hour to a half-hour, to Allen’s dismay despite saving Allen from the undue stress of producing so much material a week. In this new format, the jokes came fast and thick; Allen’s comedic momentum was unrivaled. He hosted celebrity guests and put them through their comedic paces, making fun of hoary old entertainment cliches, other radio programs, and more.

Allen took 1944 off due to hypertension. He returned in the fall of 1945, and experienced his greatest period of success. Not only average listeners but other comedians would tune in to enjoy his work. His gift for improvisation perked up many a show, and sometimes led to his show running long and getting cut off. This and his on-air antipathy towards NBC’s executives got him in hot water time and again.

In the Oct. 7, 1945 broadcast, Fred welcomed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy to the program. They essayed a skit in which Charlie is set to leave Bergen, and he and Fred come up with a corny act with which to break back into vaudeville. They fail spectacularly, and Allen is offered a job -- without Charlie. He dumps him, and Charlie is reduced to begging Bergen for his job back.

The broadcast selected by the National Recording Registry features the debut in Allen’s Alley of Senator Claghorn, voiced by announcer Kenny Delmar. The senator was from the Deep South – “we call people from Alabama Yankees!” he proclaimed. Given to repeating himself and riding over Allen, the brash and daffy politician was a big hit.

In the end, the encroachments of television and the success of radio quiz shows destroyed his ratings. Additionally, his hypertension returned. After 1949, he would no longer hold a position on the radio dial.

Listening to his entire run of preserved shows is a pleasure and an education.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Merle Travis’ Folk Songs of the Hills.