songwriter :: Blog
Buddy Holly's Final Recordings
In June 1958, Buddy Holly met and fell in love with Maria Elena Santiago, a receptionist at Peer-Southern Music, Holly’s music publisher, in New York City. After proposing marriage on their first date, the two were married in Lubbock, Texas, in August. After their wedding, Buddy and Maria Elena Holly moved into an apartment at the Brevoort building, at 11 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village, on the site of a house once occupied by Mark Twain and just two blocks from Greenwich Village’s “beatnik” culture, which was in full swing by the late 1950s.
Living in the Village, Holly and Maria Elena would spend hours wandering around the streets, frequenting intellectual hangouts such as the Bitter End and Café Bizarre. “Buddy loved those places,” Maria Elena remembered. “The strange clothes the people wore, the poetry readings, the way they talked to one another. He loved the freedom, the way everyone was allowed to do their thing.” More than anything, Holly was attracted to the music that would literally drift down the street – blues, jazz, folk, even flamenco music.
By the time the young couple had settled into their Manhattan apartment, Holly had set up a recording and publishing ...
Rock and Roll Goes Classical
Miami University of Ohio’s Dr. Ricardo Averbach believes that even seemingly disparate musical styles can come together in powerful ways. As the conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra, Oxford Chamber Orchestra, and annual opera production, Dr. Averbach also collaborates regularly with Miami’s world music ensemble director. Fusing classical music and world music poses its own challenges, but musicians are often even more reticent to mix classical and rock and roll, despite a long tradition of marrying the two. One need only listen to any Phil Spector, Gamble and Huff or Arif Mardin–produced songs for examples. In fact, the Rock Hall's education department currently offers a class called “Ambassador to the Orchestra: The Arranger in Rock and Roll,” where students listen to and examine the music of Maxwell, Dusty Springfield, Metallica and the Beatles to explore the intersection of classical and rock and roll. The Rock Hall had partnered with classical music organizations before, including Red {an orchestra}, Contemporary Youth Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra, so when Dr. Averbach and CODA’s President Dr. Anthony Holland of Skidmore College approached us with the idea of a collaboration, we were excited about the opportunity.
This month, the Rock and ...
Remembering Bobby Bennett of the Famous Flames
2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bobby Bennett of the Famous Flames passed away on January 18, 2013, at age 74. For 15 years, the Famous Flames provided impassioned vocals and frenetic choreography alongside James Brown, helping to create among "the greatest stage shows of all time," according to former Rock Hall president and CEO Terry Stewart. Bennett – previously Brown's valet – joined the group in 1959, and along with Bobby Byrd, Johnny Terry and "Baby" Lloyd Stallworth, helped form the definitive lineup of the Famous Flames.
The Famous Flames were a vital element in Brown's success, as their electric stage presence made Brown's performances legendary. Before being dubbed the "Godfather of Soul," Brown was a Famous Flame, and it was his years with that group that made him a driving force in the world of soul music. "A lot of people didn't know that James Brown was the same as I was: a Flame," said Bennett in an April 2012 interview with the Rock Hall.
The group is audible on the 1963 classic album Live at the Apollo. Bennett and the other Famous Flames can been seen in footage from The T.A.M ...
Video: Interview with Ronnie Hawkins
For more than half a century, Ronnie Hawkins – known variously as "Mr. Dynamo," "Sir Ronnie," "Rompin' Ronnie" and "The Hawk" – has been energizing crowds with his signature rockabilly swagger. Born in Huntsville, Arkansas, in January 1935, Hawkins would find his way to the Grange club in Hamilton, Ontario, on the recommendation of Conway Twitty. He never left, adopting Canada as his own and becoming a permanent resident in 1964.
In addition to hits that included "Hey, Bo Diddley," "Marylou" and his cheeky cover of Chuck Berry's "30 Days" (renamed "Forty Days"), Hawkins gained recognition for recruiting and grooming outstanding Canadian talent to play in his band, the Hawks. The rotating cast of musicians over the years included Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Arkansan drummer Levon Helm – the quintet that would leave the Hawks to back Bob Dylan before striking out on their own as the Band. Other incarnations of the Hawks included the members of Janis Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band, and another Ronnie Lane and the Disciples. John Lennon and Yoko Ono traveled to Hawkins' Ontario farm to plan a festival during the couple's peace crusade. In 1992, Hawkins was hired to ...
Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll: "Suzanne"
When he set his 1966 poem "Suzanne Takes You Down" to music for his 1967 debut album, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, the Canadian author-musician found a linchpin between the worlds of pop music and literature and empowered the emerging singer-songwriter sub-genre in the process. First recorded and popularized by urban folk performer Judy Collins, "Suzanne" drew melodically from cabaret and European art song, while its lyrics – inspired by a real woman (Suzanne Vidal), a real city (Montreal) and an imaginary love affair (Cohen's visionary genius) – transformed the everyday details of life into a hallucinatory religious experience. A gently arpeggiated guitar figure rolls like the cosmos around the singer as he murmurs a litany of observations – some crazy, some profound, all of them Suzanne. A contemplation of love and consciousness awash in an acoustic dreamscape, "Suzanne" stood apart from both the psychedelic hard rock and the protest songs of the late Sixties and endures, in hundreds of cover versions, as ...
Summer in the City: Interview with Sharon Van Etten
With her 2009 debut album, Because I Was in Love, New Jersey–native Sharon Van Etten captured the attention of audiences, critics and musicians, who were drawn to her intimate musical portraits etched with introspective lyrics and varied arrangements. Since Van Etten's acclaimed 2010 release Epic, she's played the Pitchfork Music Festival, performed at the Hollywood Bowl with Neko Case, appeared live on the BBC and was recently named a "must-see act" by Rolling Stone. Her latest album, 2012's Tramp, was recorded during a 14-month period of scattered sessions, where the only constant was the garage studio and input of producer Aaron Dessner of the National. Here, the Rock Hall catches up with the singer/songwriter, who shares insights about life on the road, why she loves playing in New York City and what people can expect of her live performances. Sharon Van Etten will headline a free concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and ...
Pioneers of Rock
"Pioneers of Rock" is the second installment in a special series that highlights the evolution of women in music by placing their accomplishments, inspirations and influence in the context of the eras that shaped their sounds and messages. "America's Foremothers" introduced the series.
As World War II ended in 1945 and G.I.s returned home, the proportion of women on assembly lines fell from 25 percent to 7.5 percent. Women who had – out of necessity – taken an unprecedented place in the work force were urged back into the home by books like 1947’s Modern Woman: The Lost Sex. The book argued that only a return to traditional values and gender roles could restore “women’s inner balance.”
Female rock and roll pioneers were less interested in restoring “women’s inner balance” than they were seeking an even playing field. Taking cues from Jackie Robinson’s and Larry Doby’s breaking the color line in baseball in 1947, and from President Truman’s desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces with the signing of Executive Order 9981 in 1948, American culture and the music business was at the birth of a new age. As with the birth of ...
Remembering Jerry Leiber
Yesterday, the music world lost one of its greatest poet laureates with the passing of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Jerry Leiber. As the lyricist on countless iconic chart topping songs and so many more hit records, Leiber not only wrote the words that everyone was singing, but also led the way in how we verbalized our feelings about the societal changes we were living with in post–World War ll life. Appropriately, his vehicles of choice were the emerging populist musical genres of rhythm and blues, and then rock and roll.
Beyond the songs he penned, the team of Leiber and Stoller (Mike Stoller) also produced an untold string of hits. Inducted together into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, they also saw their music become the basis for the longest running musical revue in Broadway history, Smokey Joe’s Café, a title lifted from one of their early hits by the Robins.
I loved the Robins/Coasters growing up. They represented to me the real gestalt of rock and roll, the music helping me call the shots on the important things in life – how I dressed, how I cut my hair, how I ...
