Weekend Musical Interlude

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A choral arrangement of Henry Mancini's Grammy-winning 1961 song "Moon River," lyrics by Johnny Mercer:***** *****

Musical Interlude

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This weekend, let's take a stroll down memory lane to a better time, over a half century ago with Henry Mancini's incomparable Baby Elephant Walk (1961):

Musical Interlude

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Hard to believe that this film debuted over 47 years ago (June 20, 1975), and I still don't like to swim in the ocean:

The genius of film composer John Williams! 

As one commenter opined at YouTube:

Miss Agent E 

1 year ago

John Williams took just two notes and made generations of people terrified of the ocean.

Musical Interlude

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One of my favorite movie themes, albeit a lesser-known one, by film composer Michael Gore and from the poignant, award-winning 1983 film Terms of Endearment: 

Musical Interlude

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Two tunes composed by the incomparable Henry Mancini (1924-1994):

Musical Interlude

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I loved the following tune so much that I bought the vinyl pictured below:

   

About the "Dueling Banjos" scene in the film Deliverance:

*****At the age of 16, [Billy Redden], this boy from Rabun County, Georgia, was the only "authentic" local to play the role of The Banjo Boy in John Boorman's disturbing hit movie Deliverance (1972). He was hand-picked from his local elementary school, largely due to his "look" (his large head, skinny body, odd-shaped eyes and moronic grin had sadly branded him a poster-child for inbreeding and mental deficiency).****

Redden could not, in fact, play the banjo.  Some Hollywood "magic" in the editing room made it seem as if he could.  For more details, see "Use in Deliverance."

Musical Interlude

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Enjoy Alan Silvestri's Academy Award nominated "Feather Theme" from the 1994 film Forrest Gump, one of my favorite films and one of those rare films better than the novel of the same title, by Winston Groom.  The images in the video below are unrelated to the film.

Read about the symbolism of the feather HERE.  I concur with Sally Fields:

Sally Field compared the feather to fate, saying: "It blows in the wind and just touches down here or there. Was it planned or was it just perchance?"

More of the complete soundtrack for the film Forrest Gump.  Golden Oldie's!

About composer Alan Silvestri (1950-present) HERE and HERE. 

Musical Interlude

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YouTube blurb for the video in this blog post:

Soundtrack from the 1990 Penny Marshall film "Awakenings" with Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Julie Kavner, Penelope Ann Miller & John Heard. Based on the true story of Dr. Oliver Sacks who, in a Bronx hospital in 1969, used a new drug in order to revive patients who had been catatonic for decades.

Such poignant movie music, especially if you know the compelling story:

 

Personal story....

My father's sister, only seven years old, died of "the aftereffects" of the Great Influenza of 1918-1920 — even though flu deaths in her age group were quite rare.  Therefore, long before COVID-19 came along, I've had great interest in the award-winning film Awakenings, which depicts part of the story of  institution-confined patients suffering from the 1915-1927 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica, one of the aftereffects believed by some scientists to have been caused by the Great Influenza. 

My family never discussed exactly the specific "aftereffects" that killed Dad's sister, and I've always wondered if she, too, had encephalitis lethargica.  Perhaps Dad's didn't know; after all, he was only eight or nine years old when his sister died.

The family story I heard several times was limited to Dad's unforgettable and blunt words: 

"Because of the flu outbreak, the undertaker came to the house to embalm Chrissy — and dumped the blood behind the barn."  

I have always wondered if Chrissy slipped into a Parkinsonian-like catatonia similar to that shown in the film Awakenings, one of those rare films better than the book. 

Musical Interlude

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You know the music of James Horner even if you don't recognize his name:

 

Please take a few moments to see the list of music scores by James Horner (1953-2015).

Musical Interlude

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Enjoy this collection of pop tunes from about a half century ago and performed by Robert Allen (1927-2000): 

 

Index to the above tunes:

"Promises, Promises" (0:04) / "Yesterday" (2:10) / Variation on the "Theme from Romeo and Juliet" (6:41) / "Both Sides Now" (13:15) / "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" (16:29) / "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (21:05) / Suite from The Graduate (24:46) / "Make Our Garden Grow" (30:13) / "Goin' Out of My Head" (33:38)

Musical Interlude

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Enjoy the theme song from the award-winning 1983 film Terms of Endearment, theme music composed by Michael Gore (1951-present), and the beautiful images accompanying the music : 

Lately, when I need a few relaxing moments away from the herculean moving tasks of sorting and tossing, I play this piano arrangement of the above theme to relax my mind and body: 

 

For Father's Day 2021

My father (June 19, 1911-January 30, 1998).  Today is your 110th birthday!

Dad in his twenties

Dad, in his sixties, is on the left.

I miss you, Dad — even though these words so apply to our relationship: 

"Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still -- real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever" (from How Green Was My Valley).

 I don't know what Dad's favorite song was, but I do know that the award-winning 1941 movie How Green Was My Valley was his favorite film. When Dad and Mom were dating, this film was the one movie which he took her to see at the cinema when the film was re-released to theaters in 1950.

 

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Music and images that match the overwhelming grief in my soul:

About Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6: 

The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, also known as the Pathétique Symphony, is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer entitled the work "The Passionate Symphony", employing a Russian word, Патетическая (Pateticheskaya), meaning "passionate" or "emotional", which was then (mis-)translated into French as pathétique, meaning "solemn" or "emotive". 

The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 28 October [O.S. 16 October] of that year, nine days before his death....

Interesting reading: the above piece's place in popular culture.  Worth your time.

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Enjoy James Roy Horner's Avatar Theme performed by The Piano Guys:

 

Read about composter James Roy Horner HERE.  

Read about the above video HERE.

BOO!

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The theme music for the 1983 science-fiction thriller The Dead Zone, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, was composed by Michael Kamen (1948-2003), who, by the way, collaborated with Pink Floyd on the album The Wall.

Nick Bode, a commenter at YouTube, noted about the theme to The Dead Zone:

When Michael Kamen was composing this score, he'd play it over & over on his piano at home. His neighbor called & said "Please stop playing whatever that music is. You're giving my family nightmares." Epic.

Listen to this music. Do you agree with Mr. Bode?

 

Related reading: The True Stories Behind 11 Hair-Raising Urban Legends, From Candyman to Slender Man.  Interesting stuff!

Voices From The Past

Please take a few minutes to watch the two short videos below:





Below is the most-watched YouTube documentary on the topic of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic — if you have time to watch (over 4 million views):


Now for my family's own stories.......


My father's younger sister, about age 7, died of "the aftereffects of the flu." Something like the 1990 film Awakenings? Full movie HERE at YouTube, albeit poor quality.  I highly recommend the film! It is available via Amazon Prime Video.

Dad occasionally spoke of what happened when his sister died: "The undertaker embalmed Chrissie at the house — and dumped the blood behind the barn."  The funeral service and burial were private.  The influenza didn't stop until everything was shut down: schools, funerals, churches, etc.  And the government refused to believe that something terrible was happening with Americans' health.  Until, that is, bodies began piling up on the sidewalks and in the streets of Washington, D.C.

My maternal grandmother (1898-1981) had a robust immune system. It fell to her to take care of her brother Walter, who brought influenza to their remote location in the mountains of East Tennessee when he was discharged from the US Army, fell ill himself, and gave the flu to his brother-in-law Fred, my grandmother's husband.  My grandmother sent her two children, one born in 1916 and the other in 1918 to her parents' farm and took care of Walter and Fred.

My grandmother related the story of those days in this way: "I got almost no sleep.  I went back and forth between the river for cold water and the menfolks' foreheads.  They were out of their heads with fever.  My sister brought food, called to me, and set the food down about 25 feet from the house; I fetched the food from there.  I don't remember how long all this went on.  Seemed like forever.  But Walter and Fred got well, and life went back to normal."

I asked Wawa how she stood those weeks of hard work as a nurse.  Her response: "Life isn't about what you want to do.  Life is about what you have to do."  She also told me of a particular safely measure she used: teetotaler though she was, she gargled in moonshine morning and evening.  And she swallowed that moonshine, too.

Bringing us back to today....A view of the front lines of this grim war against Coronavirus (dated March 23, 2020): The Growing Chaos Inside New York’s Hospitals.

And one more thing...in the immortal words of Gilda Radner:

Weekend Video: 60 Images You Must See...

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One of my Facebook finds and worth your time:

Another retro video below the fold.

Musical Interlude

Perfect easy-listening music for this Summer 2019 Heat Wave in the Northeast:


About this piece:

Percy Faith recorded the most popular version of the tune, which spent an at-the-time record of nine consecutive weeks at number one on the still-young Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in early 1960.

It remains the longest-running number-one instrumental in the history of the chart. It reached number two in the UK. It hit number one in Italy under the title "Scandalo Al Sole".

Faith won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1961 for his recording. This was the first movie theme and the first instrumental to win a Record of the Year Grammy.

Faith re-recorded the song twice first, in 1969, as a female choral version, then, in 1976, as a disco version titled "Summer Place 76".

In 2008, Faith's original version was ranked at number eighteen on Billboard's top 100 songs during the first fifty years of the Hot 100 chart.

Musical Interlude

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Rest in peace, Michael Legrand (February 24, 1932-January 26, 2019):

Michel Legrand was a five-time Grammy winner; he also won three Oscars. He remained active until his death. Concerts were scheduled for this spring.  More about him HERE.

Recommended Reading: Changing Taboos

See Old favorites, outdated attitudes: Can entertainment expire? at the Associated Press on December 28, 2018.

The first three paragraphs:

NEW YORK (AP) — The 1940 movie “The Philadelphia Story” opens with a case of domestic assault played for laughs — Cary Grant shoving Katharine Hepburn to the ground by her face while a jaunty musical score plays.

Eight decades later, the movie is clearly two things: uneasy fare for a post-#metoo culture — and an enduring American classic. And it’s far from the only example of such things.

They exist throughout society’s pop-culture canon, from movies to TV to music and beyond: pieces of work that have withstood time’s passage but that contain actions, words and depictions about race, gender and sexual orientation that we now find questionable at best....

Read the rest HERE. Do read the rest before commenting.