NRR Project: 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds' (1934)

 

NRR Project: ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’

Words and music: Bob Nolan

Performed by the Sons of the Pioneers

Released Aug. 8, 1934

What is “Western” music? Seemingly, the answer is simple: songs originating in lives of the people who founded the American West, most specifically cowboys. Musical anthropologists such as John Lomax collected and codified these songs around the turn of the last century. These songs are authentic artifacts of life on the range. Often sung with only a guitar or accordion as accompaniment, they evoked the loneliness and grandeur of the cowboy’s life.

New Western music, however, could be made up by professional songwriters. One such was Bob Nolan, who with Leonard Slye and Tim Spencer made up the nucleus of the Sons of the Pioneers. Nolan could write ballads that sounded like the real thing, with lyrics that romanticized the Western experience.

This kind of music was made popular by the introduction of the singing cowboy in early sound films. The cliché of the warbling vaquero who could fight the bad guys and then serenade a beautiful lady led to the steady production of original songs that sounded like the cowboy originals. “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” is a beautiful song, gently mournful and pathetic. The singer compares himself to the rolling landmarks of the West, claiming to be only happy when he is as free to roam as they are. One can easily imagine it sung around a campfire.

Nolan’s and Spencer’s music writing were solid, and the group’s close and intricate harmonies were captivating. Soon they and other “cowboy bands” gained popularity in the early 1930’s. The fusion of Western tunes with big band and jazz numbers led to the birth of Western swing. The Sons of the Pioneers would appear in films, on the radio and TV, and via recordings for decades down to the present day.

Oh, and Leonard Slye? He changed his name and became Roy Rogers.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: You’re the Top.

NRR Project: New Music Quarterly series (1934-1949)

 

NRR Project: New Music Quarterly series

Recorded 1934-1949

Of course, anyone wanting a complete and thorough accounting of this entry should refer to Joel Sachs’ excellent essay on the project, to be found here.

Basically, the first avant-garde American composers were looking for ways to share their music. No one was paying attention to their work. The New Music Quarterly was exactly that – a publication that printed the scores of new works, for study and performance.

But the Quarterly’s leaders wanted more. They did their best to record new music, get it on disc, distribute it, and sell it. The results were sporadic and uneven – no memorable recording resulted – but it did allow composers to get their music heard, to get a feel for how it came off in performance. In that sense, the series was very helpful to a generation of experimental artists.

Needless to say, the audience for this kind of work was miniscule. Over four dozen recordings were made over the series’ 16-year history. The story of the New Musci Quarterly series is that of technical problems grappled with, chronic cashlessness faced, and systems of support routinely collapsing. America is unkind to original thinkers unless profit can be derived from their musings.

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

 

NRR Project: 'Mal Hombre' (1934)

 

NRR Project: ‘Mal Hombre’

Performed by Lydia Mendoza

Recorded 1934

3:32

I could not do better to inform the reader about Lydia Mendoza than to point them to the excellent explanatory essay by Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez at the NationalRecording Registry. For the sake of the entry, I will include my own thoughts.

Mendoza was part of a musical family that lived and traveled through the United States and Mexico, performing for poor, Spanish-speaking audiences in all kinds of venues – bars, street corners, open fields. They had a body of music, composed from different influences, that would come to be known as Tejano music.

Mendoza lived in a society almost completely cut off from the mainstream. She never learned English – she didn’t have to. She moved inside of a culture whole and entire of itself, a Hispanic culture that, still today, lives on a completely different level that is unknown to the Caucasian majority.

Lydia, a performer since the age of 12, recorded this at the age of 16. “Mal Hombre,” a dark and dire portrait of an unfaithful, manipulative lover, became her signature song. Almost single-handedly, over the course of 50 albums featuring more than 200 songs, she set down the music and poetry of the Mexican-American underclass.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: the New Music Quarterly recordings.

NRR Project: 'If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again' (1934)

 

NRR Project: ‘If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again’

Music: John Whitfield Vaughan Lyrics: James Rowe

Performed by Thomas A. Dorsey

Recorded 1934

3:03

Gospel music was evolving. What once had been staid renditions of straight-up hymns began to incorporate the sounds of pop music, and even the blues.

Thomas Dorsey was one of those innovators, a prolific songwriter and performer. Of the blues. Yet in 1932 he turned his songwriting talents to writing gospel music exclusively. You can hear his barrelhouse sensibilities in his rendition of this song, interestingly one he did not write.

The lyrics of the song are sentimental and nostalgic, mourning the loss of a mother and her steadfast faith. However, this rendition of the song has the rollicking energy of a good-time song, with emphatic piano playing and singing by Dorsey, and a rowdy chorus behind him. The energy is infectious. It practically demands that the listener join in.

Dorsey rapidly abandoned performing and recording, but his output of classic songs include “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” and “Peace in the Valley.”

For more detailed information about the piece, please refer to Robert F. Darden’s excellent essay 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 up: Mal Hombre.

NRR Project: 'Stormy Weather' (1933)

 

NRR Project: ‘Stormy Weather’

Music: Harold Arlen Lyrics: Ted Koehler

Performed by Ethel Waters

Recorded May 3, 1933

3:12

On April 16, 1933, a new show opened at the Cotton Club in New York. It soon became known as the Stormy Weather Review, due to the success and impact of the singing of Ethel Waters.

Up until this time, Black women were typed as blues singers – shouting, stomping, with big-mama energy. Waters was one of these . . . but then she got a chance to sing this song, originally intended for Cab Calloway. Her rendition made her famous.

In doing so, the culture showed itself open to a new style of song – neither a Victorian ballad nor a low-down blues but something in between. It’s a torch song, bluesy but not a blues, replete with catchy lyrics and an essential emotional vulnerability that appealed to audiences not used to seeing it onstage. Soon it and many songs like it from the period would be codified in the national imagination as the Great American Songbook.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again.

NRR Project: 'Goodnight, Irene" (1932)

 

NRR Project: ‘Goodnight, Irene’

Music and lyrics by unknown

Performed by Lead Belly

Recorded 1933

This sweet, plaintive song is an American classic – but it didn’t become a hit until the man who made its definite version was dead.

Huddie William Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly, had a difficult life, full of criminal behavior. He spent many years in prison, and in fact was “discovered” by folklorist John Lomax in 1933 while serving time in Louisiana’s Angola Penitentiary. He was an encyclopedia of songs – blues, folk tunes, gospel songs, children’s game songs . . . something for every kind of function, as was normal at the time for a versatile traveling musician.

Lomax recorded him, and pursued a pardon for “the singing convict” from the governor, which was obtained. Lead Belly then began 16 years of touring, recording, and performing, finding the greatest interest from those into folk music. Two years after his death, the folk group the Weavers had a massive hit with their cover of “Goodnight, Irene.”

The song is a gentle lament in three-quarter time. “I asked your mother for you/She told me that you was too young/I wish dear Lord I’d never seen your face/I’m sorry you were ever born,” says the first verse. Despite the vehemence of the feeling expressed, the singer goes back on his thoughts immediately and sadly declares, “Goodnight, Irene/I’ll see you in my dreams.”

It is difficult to define the origin of the song. Christopher Lornell, in his excellent explanatory essay, does an amazing amount of detective work in tracing the song back to its origins. Lead Belly got the song from his uncle. Where did he get it from? There is evidence that the song was originally a Victorian parlor song, the words and structure of which mutated over the decades, until the song finally assumed its most familiar shape. (The same melody graces the gospel song “If It Had Not Been for Jesus,” recorded in 1930 by Blind Willie Johnson.)

Lead Belly produced a large body of work in a short time, leaving a number of memoriaable songs, such as “Midnight Special,” “Cotton Fields,” and “In the Pines.” Artists such as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, And Van Morrison have cited him as an influence. He had the touch.

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

NRR Project: FDR - Speeches and Fireside Chats (1932-1945)

 

NRR Project: Complete Presidential Speeches, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932-1945) and

Fireside Chats, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1944)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a phenomenon. Creative, forceful, and patient, he guided America through 13 years of turmoil – the Great Depression and World War II – as the 32^nd President of the United States. The country rarely had so strong and dynamic a figure to look up to, and due to his actions he became one of the era’s great leaders.

He set up many of the social welfare agencies, including Social Security; he set up the Securities and Exchange Commission and many other agencies as well. He created jobs through government work projects, and through those jobs improved vast areas of America’s infrastructure, as well as contributing to the culture. And his resolute defiance of fascism helped to insure the Allies’ defeat of the Nazis and their ilk.

A large part of his popularity with the general public (Republicans and news editorial boards hated him) was due to his ability to communicate. In dozens of speeches, he eloquently and simply put forward the progressive proposals he had for America, and he reassured a worried public about the strength of the economy as well. Instead of hiding behind official pronouncements, he went frequently to the radio, his favorite medium, as a way to inform and influence the general listener (he began using radio as the governor of New York).

His “Fireside Chats” are particularly memorable. (They are so-called because his second chat took place next to a blazing fire.) Rather than avoid the issues, or to make pleasant double-talk, Roosevelt in his broadcasts would develop and expound upon one issue at a time, patiently explicating his thinking and making a case for the reforms he knew would transform society.

His familiar voice was listened to by millions – he was carried on all the networks. The more than two dozen chats he initiated became welcome in all manner of homes. People listened to and trusted him – a reality that does not exist with today’s politicians.

Was Roosevelt a visionary or a would-be dictator? No matter where the verdict of history places him, he remained an immense source of inspiration for the Greatest Generation. You can find out more information here and here.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Goodnight, Irene.