Sound Beat

You’re listening to the Carter Family’s rendition of “Honey in the Rock”, a Coral Record from 1949, and you’re on the Sound Beat.

Frederick A. Graves originally wrote the song in 1895, but his version was a bit, well, heavy…A.P. Carter then rewrote it in 1937 to better fit the Carter Family’s repertoire. In short, he focused more on the “honey and the salvation” than the” blood and the sins”. Probably a good move, sales-wise.

The Carter Family recorded for over 30 years, helping to create and then redefine country music, and were inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1970.

This episode was co-written by Syracuse University Honors student Jack McCormack, part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership.

Learn how students are interacting with historic sound right now at Soundbeat.org

You’re listening to the Five Satins with In the Still of the Night, an Embassy 78 from 1956 and….

You’re on the Sound Beat

Nighttime is often the right time for thoughtful reflection. Especially when one is on guard duty in the Army. Such is the case with this song, written by Fred Parris while on active duty. He and the Satins recorded it in the basement of the St. Bernadette church in their hometown of New Haven, Connecticut. It was a big hit, but Parris didn’t get to celebrate long. He would be called back to active duty shortly after the release.

Just how big a hit was it? It’s the only song to have made the Billboard top 100 3 times…that’s the same artist with the same version. It debuted at #24 in 1956, was released again in 1960, reaching #81, and then a year later it reached #99.

It’s also talked about as the origins of doo-wop. Find out more right here.

(Photo taken at La Silla Observatory)

You’re listening to one of the most distinctive signature sounds in all of recorded music, and…

You’re on the Sound Beat.

That telltale whoop belongs to Sonny Terry, one of the most influential harmonica players of all time. Blind, but not from birth, Terry lost his sight one eye at a time, first in early childhood, and the second in his late teens. He recorded “Whoopin’ the Blues” with Brownie McGhee in 1947 for Capitol Records. The Terry/McGhee partnership was one of the most prolific and is one of the most revered in blues history.

Want to see them in action?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34FWANCq6_0

Photo credit: Ian Chadwick

Between them, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope dominated tv, records, radio and the driving range.  But their film careers were made during the “Road” features. The 7 total films were released between 1940 and 1962, and also starred Dorothy Lamour. They were, more than anything else, conduits for ad-libbed lines and playful barbs Bing and Bob would sling at one another. Here they are with “Put It There, Pal” from “Road To Utopia” in 1946.

The films have drawn homage from musical group “They Might Be Giants”, TV show Family Guy,and, of course, the 80’s comedy classic “Spies Like Us”. What was so special about that connection? It’s all summed up right here:

You’re listening to Pearl Bailey from 1946 and you’re on the Sound Beat.

Pearl made her Broadway debut that year, performing “It’s a Woman’s Prerogative” in St. Louis Woman. Though audiences weren’t enamored of the play, her performance marked the beginning of a decades-long love affair between Bailey and the American public. That “special time together” included a Tony award for Hello, Dolly! and later pop-culture staples like “The Love Boat”, “The Muppet Show” and “Hollywood Squares”.

Ol’ softy President Richard M. Nixon made it all official in 1970 proclaiming Bailey “Ambassador of Love”. The position was rumored to pay 80,000 hugs annually with a guaranteed pension of half that amount. Nixon even accompanied Bailey on the piano. Turns out he was an amateur composer. Click here for video of Nixon’s Concerto No. 1…and some Truman jokes thrown in for good measure.

Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan, and nicknamed Lady Day. This 1946 recording of “Big Stuff” represents something of an anomaly in her career. It emerged only multiple, vigorous recording sessions. Her difficulties in the studio seemed to mirror those in her personal life, as Holiday was struggling with drug and alcohol abuse.  

The song itself was composed by Leonard Bernstein for his 1944 ballet “Fancy Free”. Once Holliday’s version was released, it was featured in the opening scene, playing from a juxebox.

 This episode was written in part by Syracuse University student Sarah Detweiler, as part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership project. To learn more about the Partnership, click here!

Alright, hope we didn’t over bill it. But I mean, it’s insurance, we had to liven it up somehow. The very first auto insurance policy was sold by Travelers Insurance to Dr. Truman Martin of Buffalo NY in February of 1898. It was very likely to protect his car from accidents involving horses. It’s perhaps impossible to relate the role horses played in daily life at the turn of the 20th century. All transportation seemed measured in equine terminology: you’ve got  “iron horse”, the “horseless carriage” and, of course, “horsepower”. You’re listening to Smith and Harper with Insurance Policy Blues, a Melotone record from 1936.

For those who think we’re all fancy with our futuristic electric cars…they were making them in Buffalo in 1900. For more on The Buffalo, click here.

Rock historians attribute the term “Rock and Roll” to radio dj Allen Freed in 1951. And while he set a name to that combo of rhythm, blues, country, jazz that got Elvis wagging his hips around, he wasn’t the first to put the words together.

The origins of the term are nautical…17th-century sailors would describe ship’s movements as rocking and rolling.

The first recorded mention of the words “rock” and “roll” together? That would be the Edison Quartet, who also went by the Haydn Quartet when not recording with old Thomas Alva.  Their 1904 recording of Camp Meeting Jubilee contain the lyrics “rocking and rolling in your arms”. Here they are on a brown wax cylinder recording from 1904.

Censorship has been a big issue in the U.S. since, well, before there was a U.S.

You’re on the Sound Beat.

The first song officially banned on our soil was “A Song Made Upon the Election of New Magistrates To the City”, written by John Peter Zenger, owner of the first printing press in the colonies. Seems King George didn’t appreciate the mocking of local officials.

Fast-forward a couple centuries and banned songs took on a… slightly different subject matter, earning some of them the title of “dirty blues”. You wouldn’t hear them on the radio, but certain enterprising jukebox owners would make stacks of nickels from the ribald tunes. This one was no exception: You’re listening to Fluffy Hunter and the Jesse Powell Orchestra with “The Walkin’ Blues”, a Federal record from 1953.

Sound Beat is produced at the Belfer Audio Archive, Syracuse University Libraries.

Image: Johannes Adam Simon Oertel.  Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, N.Y C.  ca. 1859.  Oil on canvas. It is in the public domain, in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923..

A little info from Wikipedia: Artist Johannes A. S. Oertel, working in the mid-nineteenth century, provides an imagined depiction of the destruction of George III’s statue in Bowling Green, the first victim of New Yorkers’ reaction to hearing news of the Declaration of Independence.  Oertel  places women, children and Native Americans among what eyewitnesses recorded as a rowdy crowd of soldiers and civilians.  No true image of the statue itself survives.  However, contemporary descriptions inform us that the King was sculpted in Roman garb, not the eighteenth-century royal dress shown in the  painting.

For those who celebrate it, the big day is here. Many parents are bleary-eyed and sipping coffee while the kids riot in merry madness. But short as it was, your night was probably more restful than old Ebenezer Scrooge’s. Our gift to you: Scrooge’s Awakening, an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder released in 1914.

And for your stocking: listen to the whole thing right now, courtesy of the Belfer Cylinders Digital Connection.

Jim

Image: “Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits”, artist Fred Barnard, scanned by Philip V. Allingham” “Stave Four”