Shooting

"... Opera is mainly for young people."

Nearly a month ago, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa announced the end of her opera career, saying "the work was "exhausting"". We only read about it just now in New Zealand's Herald on Sunday.

From the 70ies on Mrs. Te Kanawa has enjoyed the lovers of golden voice and thanks to recording will go on for our lifetime. In 1981 around 600 million people heard and saw her on TV singing at the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Spencer.

Let us assure you that this lady of mixed Irish and Maori descent was one of the finest Mozart singers ever. We always particularly liked her as the Contessa Rosina di Almaviva in Le nozze die Figaro.

Mrs. Te Kanawa will sing a penultimate opera performance playing La duchesse de Crakentorp at New York's Met and a last one at the Cologne Opera in Germany next April when she will do the "Marschallin" in Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier". Now while we can certainly see and hear the talent and the qualities in that opus, but this is still not our kind of music and therefor it seems improbable that we will take the pains of getting the tickets and travelling to Cologne.

We need not be afraid though for Mrs. Te Kanawa will go on singing and touring on the much quieter concert scene. In August she insisted that though she has not sung opera since 2004 she had never retired.

"The press retired me," as she told the Telegraph in London. "I have not been singing opera very much but I still sing a lot of concerts."

Kiri Te Kanawa made more remarks on sustainable and shortsighted strategies in singing. Go read yourself.

Hitting It A Million Times On Public Service TV

If you did take a look at the mix of long, broad, short, slim and what have you tails, then you would know what Public Service TV really is. They paid and pay for it. With our money. Its ways are manyfold. But manifest its stored stuff it always does. After a while, that is. And as a surprise for most all.

You'll find Martin Sandberg in many places but About's got a photograph.

Please join in on the sunday morning prayer with Al, Linda and Wanda. We'd also like to encourage you to try the related video. It features the composer himself and Taylor Dayne.

People get ready, there's a train a-comin', you don't need no baggage, you just get on board. All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin', don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.

Want to know more? It is all there. Mr. Mayfield and PGR at the National Public Radio.

Summertime's Gone For Good

Seit ein paar Tagen ist der Sommer dieses Jahr jetzt vorbei. Um ihn noch einmal zu ehren, haben wir für Euch aus der WP eine Liste der Leute geklaut, die nachgewiesenermaßen George Gershwin's Arie aus der Oper Porgy & Bess nicht nur gecovert, sondern ihre Interpretationen auch mit Hilfe elektrischer Werkzeuge technisch reproduzierbar gemacht und die dadurch entstandenen produktfähigen Tonträger erfolgreich in den Handel gebracht haben. Let's hear it for them:

1. Cem Adrian on his 2005 album Ben Bu Sarkiyi Sana Yazdim
2. Luis Arcaraz (released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-4416, with the flip side "It's the Talk of the Town"^[1])
3. Chet Baker - on Chet Baker Quartet Plays Standards
4. Fantasia Barrino on her debut album Free Yourself
5. Art Blakey - A Jazz Message (1963)
6. Eva Cassidy on the 2008 release Somewhere
7. Charlotte Church on her self-titled album
8. John Coltrane - My Favorite Things (1960)
9. Perry Como (released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-4530, with the flip side "While We're Young"^[2])
10. Sam Cooke in 1957
11. Bing Crosby & Matty Malneck (originally recorded July 8, 1938 and released by Decca Records as catalog number 2147B, with the flip side "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby"^[3]; re-released in 1947 by Decca Records as catalog number 24542, with the flip side "Love Walked in"^[4])
12. Bob Crosby & his Orchestra (recorded October 21, 1938, released by Decca Records as catalog number 2205B, with the flip side "I'm Free (What's New?)"^[3])
13. Deep Dive Corp. on their EP Summertime, 2000.
14. Doc Watson recorded 1973, appears on the album Elementary Doc Watson/Then and Now, re-released in 1997 on the Collectables label. Recorded 1987-91 Doc Watson and David Grisman and released on the album Doc and Dawg by Acoustic Disc in 1997. More recent recordings with grandson Richard Watson.
15. The Doors on their live album, Friday April 10 at Boston Arena, and an instumental verion on Live at the Matrix 1967.
16. Tal Farlow on his 1969 album The Return of Tal Farlow (Prestige Records).
17. Frances Faye (recorded about 1954,released by Capitol Records as catalog number 2842, with the flip side "Mad about the Boy"^[5])
18. Ella Fitzgerald, recorded in 1960, live in Berlin, on the Verve Records album Mack the Knife: Ella in Berlin
19. Flowers on their album Challenge!
20. Peter Gabriel on the album The Glory Of Gershwin, produced by George Martin, 1994
21. Al Gallodoro (recorded in 1951, released by Columbia Records as catalog number 39472, with the flip side "Hora Staccato"^[6])
22. Wayne Hancock on his album Thunderstorms and Neon Signs
23. Richard Hayes (with the Eddie Sauter orchestra) (released by Mercury Records as catalog number 5833, with the flip side "Junco Partner (A Worthless Cajun)"^[7])
24. Billie Holiday (recorded July 10, 1936, released by Columbia Records as catalog number 37496, with the flip side "Billie's Blues"^[8])
25. Anne Jamison (recorded July 14, 1939, released by Decca Records as catalog number 2876A, with the flip side "Looking for a Boy"^[9])
26. Jazzamor on their album Lazy Sunday Afternoon
27. Scarlett Johansson for "Unexpected Dreams – songs from the stars" and later performed on Live EPs released at the time of her debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head
28. Janis Joplin released this song with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Some live versions have erroneously been credited with having Jimi Hendrix guesting on guitar, though in actuality the guitarists were James Gurley and Sam Andrew. ^[10]
29. Sammy Kaye's Orchestra (released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-2390, with the flip side "June Is Busting Out All Over"^[11])
30. Angélique Kidjo, released on Keep on Moving: The Best of Angélique Kidjo (2003)
31. Jerry Kruger and her Orchestra (recorded April 25, 1939, released by Vocalion Records as catalog number 4927, with the flip side "Rain, Rain Go Away"^[12])
32. Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians (recorded November 10, 1937, released by Victor Records as catalog number 25716, with the flip side "I'll See You in My Dreams"^[13])
33. Gordon MacRae (Recorded 1959) from the album 'Fascinatin' Rhythm: Capitol Sings George Gershwin.
34. Paul McCartney on his 1988 album Choba B CCCP
35. Colin Meloy on his album Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke
36. Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli- Menuhin and Grappelli Play Gershwin, (1988)
37. Joni Mitchell & Herbie Hancock on a Gershwin's 100th anniversary birthday tribute album Gershwin's World.
38. Morcheeba on Red Hot + Rhapsody: The Gershwin Groove, 1998.
39. Charlie Parker String Ensemble (recorded November 30, 1949, released by Mercury Records as catalog number 11038, with the flip side "I Didn't Know What Time It Was"^[14])
40. Oscar Peterson trio on Night Train vol.3, released by Verve Records as catalog number 711 071, 1969.
41. Jane Pickens (recorded June 19, 1940, released by Columbia Records as catalog number 35580, with the flip side "Negro Spirituals"^[15])
42. Courtney Pine on the album The Glory Of Gershwin, produced by George Martin, 1994
43. Boyd Raeburn and his Orchestra (released by Guild Records as catalog number 111, with the flip side "March of the #oyds"^[16])
44. Red Saunders and his Orchestra (recorded December 31, 1953, released by Blue Lake Records as catalog number 101, with the flip side "Riverboat"^[17])
45. Skamp on their 1999 album Angata
46. Charlie Spivak and his Orchestra (recorded December 19, 1944, released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number RCA201500, with the flip side "I Got Plenty of Nothin'"^[18])
47. Billy Stewart, 1966, released as a single.
48. Sublime on their song "Doin' Time" from their self-titled album.
49. Ten Years After on their album Undead, 1968.
50. The Twilight Singers on their 2004 album "She Loves You"
51. Sarah Vaughan (recorded in December, 1949, released by Columbia Records as catalog number 38701, with the flip side "I'm Crazy to Love You"^[19])
52. The Zombies on their 1965 debut album, Begin Here

Nach einer Abstimmung in der Redaktion ist, Billy Holiday hin, Sara Vaughan her, die beste Interpretation eindeutig von Janis Joplin vorgelegt worden. Hier ist der Beweis. Wie in der Liste bereits erwähnt, stammt das Gitarrenspiel nicht von James Hendrix sondern von James Gurley and Sam Andrew von Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Growing Up in Canada in 1966

Now you say your'e leavin' home 'cause you want to be alone. Ain't it funny how you feel when you're findin' out its real?

Oh, to live on sugar mountain with the barkers and the colored balloons. You can't be twenty on sugar mountain though your'e thinking that you're leaving there too soon, you're leaving there too soon.

The Response Part I

In 1965 I was up in Canada, and there was a friend of mine up there who had just left a rock'n'roll band (...) he had just newly turned 21, and that meant he was no longer allowed into his favorite hangout, which was kind of a teeny-bopper club and once you're over 21 you couldn't get in there anymore; so he was really feeling terrible because his girlfriends and everybody that he wanted to hang out with, his band could still go there, you know, but it's one of the things that drove him to become a folk singer was that he couldn't play in this club anymore. But he was over the hill. So he wrote this song that was called "Oh to live on sugar mountain" which was a lament for his lost youth. (...) And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there's nothing after that, that's a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It's called The Circle Game.

The Response Part II

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty. Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true there’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty before the last revolving year is through.

And the seasons they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down, we’re captive on the carousel of time. We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game.