Friday, 31 December 2010

2011 Preview

I think the foundations are now in place. January will start the ball rolling with the year 1900. This first year may not be too exciting, but 2012 (1912-23) should be pretty fun, what with the golden age of the silent era (littered with well-known names/titles such as... Chaplin, Nosferatu, Cecil B DeMille, Harold Lloyd, Fritz Lang etc) and a few familiar music names popping up too (Bessie Smith, Jelly Roll Morton, Mamie Smith).

I haven't really paid attention to anything prior to 1914 before, so I am hoping I find a few pleasant surprises along the way.

[May 2011 Update: I've acquired a folder containing over 1,400 songs/tracks from 1888 - 1919, so hopefully these will provide the majority of my musical reviews up until the 1920's.]
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Wednesday, 29 December 2010

End Of A Century (Sounds)

"We kiss with dry lips when we say goodnight"

By 1899 many classical "big-hitters" had passed away, slowly bringing the Romantic Period to an end. As the Modern Classical era began, contemporary composers were lucky enough to see/hear their work appear on records for the first time, giving many people the opportunity to experience modern music soon after release, whilst the work of many deceased composers was now available for public consumption (sometimes hundreds of years after being written) as never before.

Phonograph Cylinder

Although Country, Blues, Gospel and Folk all existed in one way or another, they were not common/typically 'mainstream' in the 1800's, but more regionalised with other forms of traditional music. Whilst Hymns sound unchanged (well they do to me), 'Spirituals' are seen as the precursor to not only Gospel music, but also to the Blues.

Brass Bands are popular in Britain, with many still active today. In 1881 over in't Calderdale, in't West Riding The Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band form, which is regarded by many as the best and most consistent ‘public subscription band’ in the world.

Tin Pan Alley

1885 sees the formation of Tin Pan Alley in NYC, which becomes the dominant American music force through to the 1930's. (For more info on Tin Pan Alley and alot more fantastic information on the history of New York City, check this out)

In 1890, George W. Johnson (the first African-American recording star) is invited to record songs for 2 phonograph distributors. "The Laughing Song" became the most popular recording of 1891, and by 1895 sales of his wax cylinders exceeded 25,000.

Burlesque and Vaudeville gave way to the Broadway musicals. Cakewalks develop from slavery 'prize walks' in deep south USA into a popular music form, eventually maturing into Ragtime.

Current music trends lean towards the patriotic. Military Marches are regarded with great favour, with songs such as "Stars And Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa.

The mid to late 1890's sees the earliest publications by Scott Joplin, Whilst John Philip Sousa's band makes phonograph recordings of Cakewalks and early Ragtime.

During this period it seemed more frequent for the song to have fame than the recording artist, therefore it wouldnt be surprising to find the same song on the "charts" by 4 or 5 different artists.

Popular songs include "My Old New Hampshire Home", "A Hot Time in the Old Town", "I'd Leave My Happy Home for You" and "Oh My Darling, Clementine".

Popular acts include U.S. Marine Band, Vess L. Ossman, Dan Quinn, Sousa's Band and George J. Gaskin. Gaskin achieves over 25 "hits" in the 1890's alone.

RYM lists Arthur Collins "Hello, Ma Baby" as #1 for the 1890's. Coon Songs, however popular they may have been late 1800s/early 1900s, just do not sit well today, despite often showcasing interesting/talented musicianship. The titles and lyrics just seem pointlessly racist, and make one wonder why/if this was ever really acceptable.


Notable Pre-1900 Births

1899 - Duke Ellington; Al Bowlly; Thomas A. Dorsey; Hoagy Carmichael
1898 - George Gershwin; Paul Robeson; Big Bill Broonzy; Dock Boggs; Jimmy Yancey;
Zutty Singleton; Warren "Baby" Dodds; Sippie Wallace; Clarence Williams; Lotte Lenya
1897 - Marian Anderson; Sidney Bechet; Jimmie Rodgers; Erich Wolfgang Korngold;
Memphis Minnie; Fletcher Henderson
1896 - Ida Cox
1895 - Carl Orff; Oscar Hammerstein II; Alberta Hunter
1894 - Dmitri Tiomkin; Bessie Smith
1893 - Mississippi John Hurt; "Blind" Lemon Jefferson; Willie "The Lion" Smith
1892 - Bo Carter
1891 - Sergei Prokofiev; Cole Porter; Charlie Patton
1890 - Paul Whiteman
1888 - Lead Belly; Irving Berlin; Max Steiner
1887 - Heitor Villa-Lobos
1886 - Ma Rainey
1885 - Joe "King" Oliver; Jelly Roll Morton
1883 - Edgard Varèse; Mamie Smith
1882 - Igor Stravinsky
1881 - Béla Bartók
1875 - Maurice Ravel
1874 - Gustav Holst
1873 - Sergei Rachmaninoff
1867 - Scott Joplin
1866 - Erik Satie
1865 - Paul Dukas; Jean Sibelius
1864 - Richard Strauss
1862 - Claude Debussy
1860 - Gustav Mahler
1858 - Giacomo Puccini
1857 - Edward Elgar

Notable Pre-1900 Deaths

1899 - Johann Strauss II
1897 - Johannes Brahms
1895 - Franz von Suppé
1894 - Anton Rubinstein
1893 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
1891 - Léo Delibes
1886 - Franz Liszt
1884 - Bedřich Smetana
1883 - Richard Wagner
1881 - Modest Mussorgsky
1880 - Jacques Offenbach
1875 - Georges Bizet
1868 - Gioachino Rossini


Also, on a Popular Culture side note, many modern day spectator sports were introduced during the late 19th/early 20th century.
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Tuesday, 28 December 2010

1800's (Sights)

"The mythology begins the begin."

I suppose popular culture (where music and movies are concerned) begins in the late 1800's. The century brought us not only electricity, lightbulbs and batteries, but also photography, the motion picture and the phonograph cylinder, which transformed the way sight and sound were displayed and distributed. Visuals were no longer limited to still life, and live performances were not the only way to hear music.



The oldest surviving celluloid is a 2 second short from 1888. Filmed just an hours drive from my home, "Roundhay Garden Scene" is an experimental film shot in Yorkshire, UK by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince.


Pittsburgh, PA - claimed to be the first nickelodeon in the USA

There are many key points/dates attributed to the birth of movies, but one in particular stands out. On December 28th, 1895 (115 years ago today!) the Lumière brothers projected their films for the first time to a paying audience. 2 years previously in Brooklyn, Thomas Edison gave the worlds first public exhibition of a motion picture. The remaining years of the 19th Century saw a number of film companies emerge, with Nickelodeons popping up throughout the USA.

Selected films of the 1890's:


(1) La sortie des usines Lumière (1895)


(2) L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1895)


(3) L'Arroseur arrosé (1895)


(4) Un Homme de Têtes (1898)
  • (1-3) Lumière brothers present a collection of short films to a paying audience at the Grand Café, Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. "Exiting The Factory", "The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station" and the comedic "The Sprinkler Sprinkled" (which becomes the worlds first fiction film).
  • (4) "Four Heads Are Better Than One" is one of many fantasy films created by professional magician Georges Méliès.
The oldest screen starlets were born in the 1890's. Childhood friends Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish (known as 'The First Lady of the Silent Screen') found great success in the 1910's, beginning with their work with D. W. Griffith. Pickford went from 'Biograph Girl' to one of the most famous women in the world in just a few years. By the age of 21 she was the highest paid actress in the world, and from 1916 she would also act as producer/occasional writer to the majority of her films, with her contract allowing her full control of her movies. In 1919, together with future husband Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, she formed the independent film production company United Artists.

Lillian Gish (left) and Mae West (right)

Mae West's international fame came quite later on. She didn't make her film debut till she was 38 years old, however she managed to keep her age a secret for many years. She began her career as a teen vaudevillian, and went on to become a playwright, before writing and acting for the big screen, and becoming one of the first sex symbols in cinema.

The late 1800's have been depicted in such films as: The Four Feathers, High Noon, Doctor Zhivago, Hello Dolly!, The Elephant Man, Gandhi, Dracula, From Hell, The Prestige and Sherlock Holmes.

Notable Pre-1900 Births

Actors:

1899 - Humphrey Bogart; Fred Astaire; Charles Laughton; James Cagney; Noël Coward
1898 - Dorothy Gish; Randolph Scott
1897 - Gloria Swanson; Fredric March
1896 - Ruth Gordon
1895 - Paul Muni; Rudolph Valentino; George Raft; Bud Abbott; Edna Purviance
1894 - Jack Benny
1893 - Lillian Gish; Edward G. Robinson; Ivor Novello; Harold Lloyd; Cedric Hardwicke
1892 - Mary Pickford; Mae West; William Powell; Oliver Hardy; Leo G. Carroll; Basil Rathbone
1891 - Sam Jaffe; Wallace Reid; Ronald Colman
1890 - Adolphe Menjou; Groucho Marx; Herbert Marshall; Stan Laurel
1889 - Claude Rains
1888 - Harpo Marx; Miles Mander; Jack Holt; Barry Fitzgerald
1887 - Boris Karloff; Gertrude Astor; Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle; Chico Marx
1886 - Al Jolson
1885 - Otto Kruger
1883 - Douglas Fairbanks; Lon Chaney
1882 - Béla Lugosi; John Barrymore; George Bancroft
1880 - W. C. Fields
1879 - Sara Allgood; Max Schreck; Will Rogers; Sydney Greenstreet; Ethel Barrymore
1878 - Lionel Barrymore; Harry Carey
1877 - Charles Coburn

Directors/Filmmakers:

1899 - Alfred Hitchcock; George Cukor
1898 - Leo McCarey; Preston Sturges; Norman Z. McLeod; Sergei Eisenstein; René Clair;
Henry Hathaway
1897 - Frank Capra
1896 - William A. Wellman; Howard Hawks; Julien Duvivier
1895 - Sam Taylor; Zoltan Korda; Buster Keaton; Lewis Milestone
1894 - John Ford; King Vidor; Josef von Sternberg; Jean Renoir
1893 - Merian C. Cooper; Ernest B. Schoedsack; William Dieterle
1892 - Ernst Lubitsch
1891 - Irving Pichel
1890 - Fritz Lang
1889 - Charles Chaplin; W. S. Van Dyke; William Keighley; James Whale; Victor Fleming
1888 - F. W. Murnau
1887 - Raoul Walsh
1886 - Henry King; Michael Curtiz
1885 - Erich von Stroheim
1881 - Cecil B. DeMille
1880 - Tod Browning
1875 - D. W. Griffith
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Sunday, 26 December 2010

Intro

"Europe, America, Winterland. Introducing the plan."

Thanks to those geeky features within some of my favourite websites, I'm allowing myself to be taken on a journey into the unknown. I'll be coming across alot of stuff I've neither seen nor heard before, together with reacquainting myself with things I've enjoyed in the past. The following sites/links have been quite useful in my search for all things great. I'm starting at the beginning.

Films101 - Top 10,000 movies (or so)

RateYourMusic - Top of the 1900's (music)

RateYourMusic - Top of the 1900's (movies)

IMDB - Most voted films of 1900

Also using the American Film Institute Desk Reference from 2002.

I'll be relying on you guys n gals out there. Those who've contributed reviews and ratings to movies and records will surely determine whether something gets a look in, or avoided like the plague. Obviously, as time goes on, the newer items will likely have far more votes, even if it's just down to the more recent popularity/availability.

I'm sure more websites will come in handy as I get into the post-war years but, for now at least, I'm with happy what results I will find using those listed. Maybe I'll attempt to have a look/listen to anything that takes my fancy that has a 3/5 (6/10) or higher rating.

I suppose there are 3 stages, and I aim to keep listening, looking, learning, writing throughout 1 & 2. Each month I'll probably give up when I find myself stuck in stage 3.

1) Excited/blown away....I must have this record/film; 2) Interesting to the point that it has some relevance, and may or may not be worth discussing; 3) Loss of interest, not particularly enjoying what I'm finding.


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