Almost there, JB was a great performer, unique and influential, the rap industry began off the back of his samples as far as I can remember. But does that qualify on this Rushmore you all speak of?

Feck it, I'm a spoil sport.

140:

it's like saying you want to put reagan on rushmore. who do you bump?

Jefferson. :)

To do a Mount Rushmore of Music would be a exercise in futility, especially if you are not limited by Genre.

Even if you limit it to just Americans (leaving such notables as Lennon, McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bob Marley, Freddie Mercury, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Roger Daughtry, Pavarotti, Bono and David Bowie's many personas out of it), Elvis and Louis Armstrong are the only givens for me. I guess I'd put Aretha Franklin in as the lone female, and I I'd probably finish it with Michael Jackson, although you'll probably have to get back to me after he's in the ground for awhile.

Thank goodness Sousa did most of his best work in the 19th century.

You can't say something similarily about a guy like Hank Williams.
Even I was a pup when Williams died and things were different in scope, but you surely would have heard his songs played on all manners of stations, although not the "race" stations.

I think it's too early to rate Jackson that highly. How wide has his influence spread? In the other thread, I commented about hearing an Indian entertainer talk to Jackson's influence in Bollywood, from the dance moves to the ubiquitous red jackets. That is influence -- of course the arrival of satellite TV to India just in time for Thriller is a technological breakthrough that earlier artists didn't have. (Of course Armstrong was recorded where Buddy Bolden wasn't,etc.) Being detached from today's new music, how much is influenced by Jackson? I'll leave that to younger ears to educate me.

i'm glad we're in agreement. see my post #118.
I might already owe you a coke. A coke and a sprite then.

Almost there, JB was a great performer, unique and influential, the rap industry began off the back of his samples as far as I can remember. But does that qualify on this Rushmore you all speak of?

Feck it, I'm a spoil sport.

I think he's in the picture much more than MJ is.

Actually, I've figured out how to do a Global Mount Rushmore: Just put up the Beatles and replace Ringo with Elvis.

Sorry Ringo.

My pop did some legal work for Jackson in the first part of the decade when banks were lending to him against his rights in the Beatles catalog.

He didn't work with Jackson directly, but he was in the room with him. He said that Jackson was utterly bizzare: he was obviously crazy and, he emphasized, obviously drugged, but he insisted upon attending some meetings and being scruplously briefed on the transactions, even though most of the people involved felt that he was too wacked-out to understand what was going on.

Remarkably (and coincidentally), my grandpa did a lot of legal work with Louis Armstrong in the last decade of his life- he was his personal non-entertainment lawyer handling all of his mundane day-to-day legal issues. He said that Armstrong couldn't spell "cat" if you spotted him the c and the t, but that Lucille (his (third or fourth)wife) was tough and smart, and that Armstrong was essentially a music savant reliant upon his spouse to guide him through the world.

So its settled

Armstrong
Elvis
Sinatra
Jackson

er, no. i will say that while jackson might fit better with the other three, he kind of doesn't stand out from them. he's in the tradition of a pop entertainer like elvis ... when you put in williams, you get four guys who took what came before and transcended genre by their career and influence. it's already apparent from what's come after jackson that he just doesn't resonate as that strong of an influence. does he? oh well, its just a subjective exercise ...

Being detached from today's new music, how much is influenced by Jackson?

Guys like Timberlake, Usher (remember him?), Maroon 5 - some of the listenable r&b and dancey crap is straight-up MJ. Those guys will readily cop to it.

(Actually Maroon 5 is three equal parts MJ, Stevie and Police).

We already had a rather awesome Mount Rushmore thread.

Dylan begat Springsteen. Now I happen to think that Springsteen started his decline with Born To Run so I think of him as closely tied to Dylan. :)

It actually went -> Dylan begat Van Morrison who then shat Bruce. Or at least that's how Van tells it.

Seriously though, New York City Serenade IS Madame George.

btw, i'm going to be seriously bummed the day stan musial dies. or bob gibson. or sandy koufax. that is, if i outlive any of them. or maybe even if i don't.

Timberlake
For all the negative press coverage in his younger days, Timberlake is the real deal, isn't he? (Based on more positive press coverage in the last few years).

eh...

to my mind there's an important distinction between being an entertainer and being a musical artist... if this Rushmore is about pure entertainment, Michael Jackson's in the conversation...

but if it's about musical artistry? he was just Madonna with a beat.

For all the negative press coverage in his younger days, Timberlake is the real deal, isn't he? (Based on more positive press coverage in the last few years).

Much to my surprise, he certainly is. He's somehow managed to convert into a very talented pop/R&B;artist, while demonstrating both a good sense of humor and a generally likeable image, and big cross cultural appeal. Seriously, looking at him, would you expect him to be in serious demand for collaborations with a wide variety of hiphop artists.

That sort of solo success is not exactly the sort of thing you expect to happen to someone who first came to national fame as a member of some pre-fab boy band.

More deaths:

Me

Elliott Smith - what a way to go!

Limiting it to US artists:

Armstrong
Sinatra
Presley
Dylan

I, for one, am really looking forward to hearing the Dandy Warhols' cover of Blackbird.

Random question from a non-American:

How did they decide who went on the actual RushmorE?

I can't even imagine that Crosby will ever be remembered as much more than a very good version of the sort of sleepy-eyed crooners who used to play straight men in the Marx Brothers' movies.

That Crosby's name has faded is purely a reflection upon our current cultural memory and actuarial tables. He was a show biz behemoth. According to Joel Whitburn's chart research, Crosby was the #1 music artist of the 1930s, and then AGAIN in the 1940s. He had 36 #1 hits, the most of any performer in history. His 317 charting singles are almost 50% more than the runnerup. He was the movies' top box office draw for five years straight (1944-48), and was in the top ten in 10 other years between 1934 and 1954. His radio shows were among Hooper/Nielsen's top-rated programs for 18 years. Crosby's TV shows were popular into his dotage. And that's before you mention his immense creative and technological impact, or his uncontested critical standing. He ain't Perry Como.

In 1997, Entertainment Weekly put out a special edition purporting to celebrate the Top 100 Entertainers of All Time. The list included a whopping five people whose careers had begun before 1950 (not counting Ed Sullivan's newspaper column). And four of them-- Sinatra, Hitchcock, John Wayne and Elizabeth Taylor-- continued into the 1970s or beyond. The lone pre-1950 performer was, strangely, Thomas Wolfe. I know they're trying to sell magazines, but hoo boy. Tough nuts, Charlie Chaplin.

btw, i'm going to be seriously bummed the day stan musial dies. or bob gibson. or sandy koufax. that is, if i outlive any of them. or maybe even if i don't.

All throughout the early and mid-90's, I had a long running debate with my book shop manager about this very limited topic:

If Sinatra and Dimaggio were each to die of a prolonged illness at the exact same moment, whose death would get greater coverage in the next day's New York Times?

My manager said Sinatra, but then his Dad was in a Big Band orchestra, so I wrote him off as prejudiced. But then again Dimaggio once patted his pot belly at a memorabilia show and called him "Paisan." I doubt if he ever washed that sweater again, and anyway they're all Italians. So I had to respect his input.

But being completely impartial, and coming from a far more clearheaded race (Norwegians), I said that the argument would have carried deep into the night at the Times itself, and they would have either given them the exact same number of inches, or they would have led with the latest political scandal and relegated the two Dagos into the obituary section.

As it turned out, they didn't die on the same day, but they did get almost identical above the fold front page coverage. Which was only fitting. Michael Jackson's in good company in more ways than two.

from a non-American

How un-American of you!

How did they decide who went on the actual RushmorE?

wikipedia's Mt. Rushmore page

Bing also molested children, they were just his own.

By which I mean beating ON, not with.

wikipedia's Mt. Rushmore page

Right, I was just there. But I was hoping for maybe a discussion of sorts. Sorry.

I'm pretty sure my paper in LR didn't put Sinatra's death on 1A. (As I've bitterly recalled before, we also didn't put Kurt Cobain's death out front, though the fact that the useless Jerry Garcia's corpse had finally stopped breathing did make 1A later on. And while I was long gone by then, I think native son Johnny Cash's death was played on 1B. Tough, & stupid, crowd.)

Under the circumstances, DiMaggio's death may've made the sports agate. Maybe.

Shredder for the win.

Gonfalon, I'm not saying that Bing wasn't a monster in his time. I'm saying that unlike Sinatra, his music hardly resonates with anyone any more. His biggest hits, to be honest, sound too much like elevator music, more schmaltzy than genuinely emotional. Even given his enormous popularity at the time, in the national memory he's much more like Gene Autry than Humphrey Bogart.

In 1997, Entertainment Weekly put out a special edition purporting to celebrate the Top 100 Entertainers of All Time. The list included a whopping five people whose careers began before 1950 (not counting Ed Sullivan's newspaper column). And four of them-- Sinatra, Hitchcock, John Wayne and Elizabeth Taylor-- continued into the 1970s or beyond. The lone pre-1950 performer was, strangely, Thomas Wolfe. I know they're trying to sell magazines, but hoo boy. Tough nuts, Charlie Chaplin.

Knowing EW, this shouldn't surprise anyone. It's kind of like the same mentality that voted Nolan Ryan onto the all-century team and left out Grover Cleveland Alexander.

though the fact that the useless Jerry Garcia's corpse had finally stopped breathing
My wife was partial to his ties, so retract that statement. :)

My wife was partial to his ties

What did she use them for?

I would have been devastated by MLK's if I had been alive when it happened. The word "hero" is grossly overused but it applies to Dr. King like few others.

It was RFK that got to me.

I can't imagine how sad it would have been to have seen the Kennedys and King get murdered.

After a point, it was soul-numbing, in a "what next?" way. Still, it was the last one that really devastated me.

Shredder for the win.

Clearly, I'm missing something. Oh, well -- it won't be the last time.

What did she use them for?
I set you up nicely, didn't I?
but she thought they looked good around a man's neck -- double windsor, not noose.

Did you guys hear about McDonald's new burger honoring Michael Jackson? It's got a 50 year old meat patty in between two 10 year old buns.

Too early? You tell me...

I was too young to remember JFK; that had to be something else!
I was in 7th grade; Sister Collette was called over to the door and the principal, Sr. Walburga (yes, Walburga), spoke to her in a low voice. Sr. Collette came back into the room crying and said that something bad had happened by she couldn't tell us. We went back to our lessons!

I was in the third grade. They let school out immediately and sent us home. Somebody said that it was because the President had been shot, and my and a buddy thought that it couldn't be true, it was a lie and somebody should stop them from spreading the rumor. The country seemed to stand still for the next few days . . .

Joe Stummer's death was the last one that really kicked my ass, though Johnny Cash had an impact. It's just that Joe's death was so sudden, I mean he was still touring and all, and he was only 50.

Hmm was Darby Crash a big enough name to make the rock death list? The Germs were impossibly good, and despite the brevity of their career have been very influential. Maybe Crash belongs in the Ian Curtis division?

I don't think Patsy Cline or Robert Johnson have been mentioned but both were obscenely gifted folk who died very young. Cline in a plane crash, and Johnson due to demonry of some kind.

Oh and Johnny Ace if only because dying backstage while playing Russian Roulette is quite possibly the most absurd celebrity death I can think of.

As for EW, well they did list Tropic Thunder as one the the 25 greatest comedies of all-time before it was even released, so I wouldn't put much veracity in anything they say.

I'm going with:

-Louis Armstrong: Popularized Jazz, the first truly American art form.

-Chuck Berry: Popularized Rock and Roll. (Go ahead and put Elvis here if you'd like, but I prefer Berry.)

-Bob Dylan: Besides being (I believe by far) the best lyricist in American music, and one of the most covered, he is the popular torchbearer of American Roots music—taken from Guthrie, Leadbelly, Seeger, Johnson, Etc... Also has 2 of the top 15 songs of all time, according to Rolling Stone.

-James Brown: Godfather of Soul and Funk, and the Grandfather of Hip-Hop.

Clearly, I'm missing something. Oh, well -- it won't be the last time.

From the Dandy Warhols' "Welcome to the Monkey House":

Wire is coming back again
Elastica got sued by them
When Michael Jackson dies
We're covering Blackbird
And won't it be absurd then
When no one knows what song they just heard
Unless someone on the radio tells them first
So come on come on come on
Come
Come on come on come on
Come on
Come on come on come on
You monkeys

When Elvis Presley died on the afternoon of Aug. 16, 1977, I doubt many ballparks played his music on the P.A. system that night.

Probably not but Kiss played Jailhouse Rock and dedicated it to "The King of Rock N Roll" during their performance at the Cow Palace (Daly City, CA - just outside San Francisco).

-James Brown: Godfather of Soul and Funk, and the Grandfather of Hip-Hop.

Finally, some support for JAMES BROWN!

And speaking of Bing Crosby, can anyone recommend an album that has his early, jazzier stuff. I need an album of that.

It was RFK that got to me.

I can't imagine how sad it would have been to have seen the Kennedys and King get murdered.

After a point, it was soul-numbing, in a "what next?" way. Still, it was the last one that really devastated me.

"It must be hard being brothers."

--Forrest Gump

Knowing EW, this shouldn't surprise anyone. It's kind of like the same mentality that voted Nolan Ryan onto the all-century team and left out Grover Cleveland Alexander.

I think my favorite list was from an episode of "Family Feud" (Richard Dawson era) where the question was "Top 8 answers on the board, name the smartest person who ever lived." I don't remember the full results, but I do know that 7 of the 8 were then currently alive, that Einstein came in second to Henry Kissinger, and that Dr. Joyce Brothers was there.

You're right about Bing Crosby ending up as a niche, but Bing's last extended big run on the Billboard charts was about 1949-50. He's had a lot longer to be "distilled" or discarded than people like Elvis or Sinatra, or even Louis Armstrong. And those guys have been brutally boiled down, too. What's Sinatra these days-- the Rat Pack, the mob, and about 5 songs? Most oldies stations have truncated their 1950s playlists to take on the 1980s. Thus, even #1 Elvis songs like "Too Much" or "Hard Headed Woman" or "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" now get little to no airplay. Their bodies of work are already substantially eroded; by 2030 or 2040, these colossi will be looking more Bingian themselves.

Ah. I quite like the DWs (indeed, as of this writing they're the last band I've seen live, going on 6 years ago), but I found that album not nearly as engaging as the 2 before it, so I wound up paying little attention to any of the lyrics.

The only death/tragedy announcement I can remember coming over the school PA from kindergarten through high school was the Challenger explosion

I remember that one, because somebody brought a TV into the office to watch the launch, which was not usual. The image of that explosion and the rocket boosters twisting off in different directions, and the announcer saying that obviously there had been a major problem, stays with me.

I was vacationing in Cape Cod when Elvis died. He passed very close to the beginning of the trip, so we had Elvis music on the radio non-stop for the entire time. We came back next year, and on the first anniversary it was the same thing.

I would have been devastated by MLK's if I had been alive when it happened. The word "hero" is grossly overused but it applies to Dr. King like few others.

I was the only white guy in an otherwise all-black poolroom in DC when that happened, and you can only imagine my reaction when half of the people started laughing at the other half who were crying. I had to get one of the criers out of there before he went postal on one of the ones who was laughing. Of course when we then walked around to a racially mixed bar on Mt. Pleasant St. and some drunken old white geezer started saying how King "got what was coming to him," we had to leave again before my friend started a riot of his own.

I also remember driving up 16th St. the next day and looking down the block that the pool room was on (Irving St.) and worrying that my fancy borrowed pool cue was going to go up in flames along with the rest of the neighborhood. That was one hell of a long weekend.

For a great Bing Crosby set, you could start with the box set Proper Records has out -- 4 CDs of his earliest stuff, for about $20 (it's a British company, and those recordings are out of copyright there). Songs with his own group, with Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, solo... Bing swings! Yes he does.

"Jeepers Creepers" is probably my favorite, that or "Put It There, Pal" (with Bob Hope).

You're right about Bing Crosby ending up as a niche, but Bing's last extended big run on the Billboard charts was about 1949-50. He's had a lot longer to be "distilled" or discarded than people like Elvis or Sinatra, or even Louis Armstrong. And those guys have been brutally boiled down, too. What's Sinatra these days-- the Rat Pack, the mob, and about 5 songs? Most oldies stations have truncated their 1950s playlists to take on the 1980s. Thus, even #1 Elvis songs like "Too Much" or "Hard Headed Woman" or "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" now get little to no airplay. Their bodies of work are already substantially eroded; by 2030 or 2040, these colossi may be looking more Bingian themselves.

One thing we both didn't mention is that Sinatra apparently still has a satellite channel of his own on Sirius. I don't get satellite radio but I assume it's still there. And even on regular radio, there's a weekly three hour program called The Sounds of Sinatra, devoted exclusively to his music. I'm pretty sure you can hear more than just his highlights on those stations.

And for Elvis, AFAIC I'm a total snob, since to me his entire claim to fame rests exclusively on what he did up through about 1956, and especially on his Sun material and his first RCA Victor album. That's some truly amazing music there, but after that he went downhill so fast it'd make your head spin. First nothing but pure generic rock 'n' roll and then pure schlock. By 1957 there were plenty of R & R singers whose stuff was infinitely better than his. And with no disrespect, since he was a decent human being, but it seems kind of fitting in a way that his first unofficially listed cause of death was something like "straining at stool." He was a Rushmore talent, but there was no way in the world that he was ever going to survive Col. Parker.

and you can only imagine my reaction when half of the people started laughing at the other half who were crying.

What was the laughter for? Seems odd in the setting you described.

One thing we both didn't mention is that Sinatra apparently still has a satellite channel of his own on Sirius.

So does Elvis, FWIW.

They don't play only Sinatra though (playing Tony bennett right now,) while I'm pretty sure the Elvis channel is Elvis-exclusive.

And for Elvis, AFAIC I'm a total snob, since to me his entire claim to fame rests exclusively on what he did up through about 1956, and especially on his Sun material and his first RCA Victor album. That's some truly amazing music there, but after that he went downhill so fast it'd make your head spin. First nothing but pure generic rock 'n' roll and then pure schlock.

exactly! I was born in '53, so by the time I was becoming aware of music, it was just completely puzzling why Elvis was such a big deal... bad movies and smarmy records.

His early stuff really was special, though.

and you can only imagine my reaction when half of the people started laughing at the other half who were crying.

Did you strip to the waist, and start stomping on hundreds of mustard packets while slapping your belly and howling, "Well, sha-ZAM, sha-ZAM, sha-ZAM?" Hey, you said I could imagine.

and you can only imagine my reaction when half of the people started laughing at the other half who were crying [after hearing that Martin Luther King had been assassinated].

What was the laughter for? Seems odd in the setting you described.

It's hard to explain this in a way that makes sense to 99% of the population under a certain age, but obviously the half that was laughing thought that those of us who were openly devastated at King's death were little more than sentimental fools. You have to realize that at the time, there was a sizable number of blacks who saw King as little more than an Uncle Tom---again, hard to believe, but it's true, and for those few brief minutes I had the (mis)fortune of witnessing this phenomenon in full force.

And for Elvis, AFAIC I'm a total snob, since to me his entire claim to fame rests exclusively on what he did up through about 1956, and especially on his Sun material and his first RCA Victor album. That's some truly amazing music there, but after that he went downhill so fast it'd make your head spin. First nothing but pure generic rock 'n' roll and then pure schlock.

exactly! I was born in '53, so by the time I was becoming aware of music, it was just completely puzzling why Elvis was such a big deal... bad movies and smarmy records.

IMO the movies are even worse than the records, because it seems like half the time when I turn on TCM hoping to catch some great long-lost film noir or a good old Hollywood pre-code movie, they've got some goddam horse opera with Elvis serenading Ann-Margaret or some other airhead actress like that. Pure torture of the highest order, or at least up there with those Bible epics and Bob Hope movies.

I was in 7th grade when John Lennon was killed. He died late on a Monday night (most Americans, in fact, learned of the shooting when Howard Cosell mentioned it on MNF), but it wasn't till I came home for dinner on Tuesday evening that I learned about it. Nobody in middle school -- classmates or teachers -- brought it up...

It's hard to explain this in a way that makes sense to 99% of the population under a certain age, but obviously the half that was laughing thought that those of us who were openly devastated at King's death were little more than sentimental fools. You have to realize that at the time, there was a sizable number of blacks who saw King as little more than an Uncle Tom---again, hard to believe, but it's true, and for those few brief minutes I had the (mis)fortune of witnessing this phenomenon in full force.

One of the things that gets lost in the deification of MLK is that he was an incredibly divise figure in virtually every circle (even amongst the black population). From people who didn't want him rocking the boat, to people who felt passive resistance was for chumps. Malcolm X was very critical of MLK's tactics, advocating taking up arms. Ditto the Black Panthers.

Although MLK's legacy is wonderful, and he indeed was a remarkable man, he was hardly the source of unity.

IMO the movies are even worse than the records, because it seems like half the time when I turn on TCM hoping to catch some great long-lost film noir or a good old Hollywood pre-code movie, they've got some goddam horse opera with Elvis serenading Ann-Margaret or some other airhead actress like that. Pure torture of the highest order, or at least up there with those Bible epics and Bob Hope movies.

Yup save for Jailhouse rock his movies are quite awful. Now if TCM would just show Joan Blondell movies in place of the Elvis movies, it would be the perfect television station.

His early stuff really was special, though.
Agreed. And even though it's pablum, I like his performances on a couple of early 60s songs -- "Little Sister" especially and "Devil in Disguise". And I am very fond of "Suspicious Minds" -- that one sounds like it comes from the heart.

His movies are really, really bad with exception of the famous "Jailhouse Rock" set.

to my mind there's an important distinction between being an entertainer and being a musical artist...

If you make that the criteria, then I'm sorry but Sinatra is off the list as well. Trying to seperate the two seems like pure folly What is Sinatra without Vegas and his black suits, or Elvis without the Milton Berle show, hair and outfits? Performance comes part and parcel with being a musician.

Elvis Presley did a lot of good stuff, right up to the end.

After 1956, he cut
"Jailhouse Rock"
the King Creole soundtrack (creating a weird hybrid of, as the song says, "Dixieland Rock." Tom Waits should do "Crawfish")
"It's Now or Never" (it's not Tony Bennett, but it's not bad)
"Can't Help Falling in Love" (which became his show closer. Elvis addressing this to his audience shows a self-awareness he's not generally granted*)
dozens of great gospel tunes, both solo & quartet-style
"Tomorrow is a Long Time" (excellent Dylan cover)
"Merry Christmas, Baby"
two great sets in the famous black leather jumpsuit, on the "comeback special"
"Suspicious Minds" and everything else he cut at American Studios, late 1969 ("Long Black Limousine," "Wearing that Loved-On Look," "Only the Strong Survive")
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" (see the clip on Youtube; he sings the #### out of it)
"An American Trilogy." I like that big sound, and it's darned ambitious in its way.
"Burning Love"
"You Were Always On My Mind"
"Faded Love" (with a very Van Morrison-type horn chart)
and even the very late hits -- "Moody Blue," "Hurt," "Way Down" -- are pretty darn good 70's country-rock.

It's not for everybody, and he certainly cut a lot of schlock (sometimes I like schlock), but dismissing everything he did in the last 20 years of his life seems a little excessive.

* Fun fact: like many great singers, he was an excellent mimic. He was a huge fan of Peter Sellers and the Monty Python troupe; he saw "Dr. Strangelove" dozens of times and would perform scenes from it, or Python bits, for friends, where he'd do all the voices.

I was in 7th grade when John Lennon was killed. He died late on a Monday night (most Americans, in fact, learned of the shooting when Howard Cosell mentioned it on MNF), but it wasn't till I came home for dinner on Tuesday evening that I learned about it. Nobody in middle school -- classmates or teachers -- brought it up...

I didn't learn of Sid Vicious' death till about a week after it happened, thanks to a chance mention in the consuite or some similar venue at a science fiction convention in Little Rock. Obviusly, his demise didn't have nearly the resonance of that of an Elvis or a Lennon, but by god I was my college's biggest punk partisan. Maybe everyone figured I couldn't handle the news ...

Yup save for Jailhouse rock his movies are quite awful. Now if TCM would just show Joan Blondell movies
I owe you a sip or two.

Joan Blondell? What have I missed? She seems like a perfectly capable comedic actress but maybe I've missed something.

My two favorite TCM actresses are Barbara Stanwyck, whom I've never appreciated until the last 5 years, and Teresa Wright, whom I would have had a mad crush on had I been around then.

After 1956,

Two of his most likable (IMHO) singles, "His Latest Flame" & "Return to Sender," were from the early '60s, I believe.

Joan Blondell? What have I missed? She seems like a perfectly capable comedic actress but maybe I've missed something.

My two favorite TCM actresses are Barbara Stanwyck, whom I've never appreciated until the last 5 years, and Teresa Wright, whom I would have had a mad crush on had I been around then.

Stanwyck is increidble, I'm not huge on Teresa Wright, though The Best Years of Our Lives is among my favorite films.

As for Joan, well her pre-code stuff is a lot of fun. A lot of it's schlock, but she has a knack for stealing scenes, and giving energy to every picture she's in, all while being insanely prolific (almost 60 pictures from 1930-1939, most as a lead). Gold Diggers of 1933, Blondie Johnson, Blonde Crazy, Night Nurse, and Footlight Parade are all essential. She later morphed into a character actress and did consistently great work there too, check Kazan's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and Cassavetes' Opening Night.

If you make that the criteria, then I'm sorry but Sinatra is off the list as well. Trying to seperate the two seems like pure folly What is Sinatra without Vegas and his black suits, or Elvis without the Milton Berle show, hair and outfits? Performance comes part and parcel with being a musician.

I absolutely lump Elvis and Sinatra together - it's all old people music.

I absolutely lump Elvis and Sinatra together - it's all old people music.

By that criteria, all music is "old people music", given the passage of time. Sinatra's fans in the early 1940s were primarily teenage girls - he can probably be seen as one of the first, if not the first, massively popular musicians to make his name by appealing to youth culture...

That's why James Baldwin and James Joyce always get lumped together -- it's all old people writing.

EDIT: too-meta joke removed.

Lincoln, Caesar, whatever.

By that criteria, all music is "old people music", given the passage of time.

No. Only 16-year olds will ever listen to Dashboard Confessional.

One of the things that gets lost in the deification of MLK is that he was an incredibly divisive figure in virtually every circle (even amongst the black population). From people who didn't want him rocking the boat, to people who felt passive resistance was for chumps. Malcolm X was very critical of MLK's tactics, advocating taking up arms. Ditto the Black Panthers.

Although MLK's legacy is wonderful, and he indeed was a remarkable man, he was hardly the source of unity.

Very true, but it's also true that in spite of all that, he and the forces he represented managed to transform American social mores more in ten short years than they had been in the previous hundred. The difference between 1968 and 2009 is indeed profound, but even that's not really comparable to the seismic changes between 1955 (the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott, which was when King came to national attention) and 1965 (the passage of the voting rights bill). Pretty much every advance we've made since then is the product of those ten years (and the Brown decision just before it).

------------

Joan Blondell? What have I missed? She seems like a perfectly capable comedic actress but maybe I've missed something.

Joan Blondell was the ultimate gum snapping, fast talking, working class blonde with a heart of gold, one of the dozens of perfect character actor types in the Warner Bros. studio. Not on the level of Stanwyck or Joan Crawford (talk about underappreciated, mostly because of her daughter's memoir), but if you get exposed to enough of her pre-code movies, she can definitely grow on you.

EDIT: And to add to what Chase mentioned, there's the classic 1965 poker movie with Steve McQueen and Edward G. Robinson, The Cincinnati Kid.

My two favorite TCM actresses are Barbara Stanwyck, whom I've never appreciated until the last 5 years...

Stanwyck is increidble

There's never been a better actress, no matter what the genre. From early tramps (Baby Face) to comic perfection (The Lady Eve) to evil vixens (Double Indemnity) to dramatic roles (Executive Suite), she did it all.

getting back to williams, the debt rock and roll owes to a performer like williams is undervalued. of the four figures here, williams is the one who most defines singer/songwriter.

To me, one of the great "what if" questions in pop music history (since no one ever brings it up) is, "What if Hank Williams had lived into the rock'n'roll era?" True, much of Nashville recoiled at the sound, but Hank had waged his own battles with the country music establishment. I'm not saying he would have uneqviocally embrased the music, but he might have liked some of it, particularly the Sun records stuff or country-influenced artists like the Everly Brothers.

Regarding Crosby, the Proper set is pretty good; domestically, Columbia released a one-CD, 16-track "The Essential Bing Crosby," which features his moving (and definitive) version of the Depression anthem "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" Anyone who thought Bing's singing lacked conviction will be pleasantly surprised by it. IIRC, that CD also has his great version of "Dinah" with the Mills Brothers. In some ways, Bing is sort of the musical equivalent of Mickey Mouse -- and that's not meant in a derisive manner. The early Crosby, like the early Mickey, had a wonderfully subversie charm about him, but it was largely ironed out by decade's end -- one by Decca, one by Disney -- resulting in a relatively bland, suburbanized character. (Some of Crosby's stuff in the 1940s is splendid -- "Only Forever," his version of "It's Been A Long, Long Time" backed by Les Paul on guitar -- but by this time, he was trying to be all things to all people, and his output was nowhere as interesting.)

I also agree that for the most part, the early pre-Army Presley is the best -- but some of his 1960s stuff can hold its own. The 1960 "Elvis Is Back!" has some really good bluesy stuff, as does "A Mess Of Blues," written by Doc Pomus and the B-side of "It's Now Or Never." "His Latest Flame" and "Little Sister" are gems, and my favorite track off 1969's "From Elvis Im Memphis" is his version of Eddy Arnold's "I'll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)," where he recaptures that wonderous feel of those early Sun sides. .

Sinatra's fans in the early 1940s were primarily teenage girls - he can probably be seen as one of the first, if not the first, massively popular musicians to make his name by appealing to youth culture.

True to some extent, but not entirely. Sinatra had plenty of male fans throughout the 1940s, but they tended to boy his records, not go to the Times Square Paramount. He was recognized as a talented vocalist; in 1946, Dean Martin bought the Sinatra album "The Voice" (in those days, an album consisted of four 78 rpm records, for a total of eight sides) and was heavily influenced by it (although Martin was more influenced by Crosby's style than Sinatra's).

The 1940s Sinatra was largely ignored for many years until Columbia made a more active reissue of his 1943-52 material, culminating in the 12-CD box set in the early '90s. It's a different Frank than his Capitol or Reprise selves; he's predominantly a ballad singer, aided by Axel Stordahl's romantic arrrangements (e.g., "If You Are But A Dream"). Beautiful stuff. His only rival in that style was the early Perry Como at Victor, but when pop music began to deteriorate in the late forties, Como went along for the ride, while Sinatra famously resisted (resulting in his dismissal from the Mitch Miller-led Columbia)..

My two favorite TCM actresses are Barbara Stanwyck, whom I've never appreciated until the last 5 years,

caught a double feature of 'double indemnity' and 'sunset boulevard' on TCM a couple of weekends ago. pure gold. double indemnity is so good on so many levels, but the score is utter perfection.

double indemnity is so good on so many levels

I'll watch that movie just to hear the way Fred MacMurray says "Baby."

[Hank Williams] might have liked some of it, particularly the Sun records stuff or country-influenced artists like the Everly Brothers.

"When Will I Be Loved" would've been a good tune for Hank.

No. Only 16-year olds will ever listen to Dashboard Confessional.

I'm 51, and I got The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most from the library just because I was curious. I had two reactions: a) the lyrics were over-the-top, embarrassingly bad "why can't I get the girl?" tripe, with Chris Carrabba recording some of the most horrifyingly bad vocals in the history of music, and b) if I had heard this band when I was a sophomore in high school, I would have been their biggest fan.

Stanwyck is increidble

There's never been a better actress, no matter what the genre.

Seconded. Amazingly versatile, and great at whatever she did.

i love me some barbara stanwyck, but she kind of chewed up the scenery a bit much on the 'big valley'. which brings us back to lee majors and farrah fawcett and all that!!!

Michael Jackson killed the interweb. I guess he was a big name?

Stanwyck is increidble

There's never been a better actress, no matter what the genre.


Seconded. Amazingly versatile, and great at whatever she did.

I concur. Carole Lombard is my all-time favorite actress, since I love romantic comedy and everything I've read about Carole suggests she was an incredible person off-screen, but no one excelled in more genres than Stanwyck (who I understand was a good friend of Lombard's). Barbara would rate #3 on my list, behind Lombard and the delightful Myrna Loy.

I would compare Cory Lidle with somebody like Benjamin Orr of the Cars.

and the delightful Myrna Loy.

Oh goddammit. You've mentioned Myrna Loy, which means I either have to wander away from the site until this thread drops off of hot topics, or spend all my time talking about how much I like the Thin Man films.

I really like the Thin Man films.

I really like the Thin Man films.

Seconded.

I really like the Thin Man films

And Myrna and William Powell made several other films together, most of which are top-class stuff.

Bill Powell is probably my all-time favorite actor -- I like that voice of his, that wit and sophistication. I can't imagine myself as Cary Grant -- he simply seems too superhuman for mere mortals like me -- but I can imagine myself as William Powell. Which means I can imagine myself romantically involved with Loy on screen and involved with (or married to) two other Hollywood goddesses, Lombard and Jean Harlow, both on- and off-screen.

And Powell's 1936 -- in which he made "My Man Godfrey," "The Great Ziegfeld," "Libeled Lady," "After The Thin Man" and the ersatz Thin Man "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford" with Jean Arthur -- is arguably the greatest single year any actor has ever had. (James Stewart's 1939 comes close, but he's dragged down by "Ice Follies Of 1939" with Joan Crawford.)

What if Hank Williams had lived into the rock'n'roll era?

He did...through Doug Sahm (the famous picture of Little Sir Doug sitting on Hank's alcoholy lap proves that!), unfortunato...Doug liked his hemp and baseball too much.

I really like the Thin Man films

Thirded.

In baseball terms, classical is the Majors, jazz is AAA, and Punk is a blind, paraplegic t-ball league.

And Powell's 1936 -- in which he made "My Man Godfrey," "The Great Ziegfeld," "Libeled Lady," "After The Thin Man" and the ersatz Thin Man "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford" with Jean Arthur -- is arguably the greatest single year any actor has ever had. (James Stewart's 1939 comes close, but he's dragged down by "Ice Follies Of 1939" with Joan Crawford.)

I'm not sure how you're measuring these things, but Thomas Mitchell only worked in the following 1939 films...

Stagecoach
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
Gone with the Wind
The Hunchback of Notre Dame

and Only Angels have Wings (Howard Hawks directed, Cary Grant and Jean Arthur starred -- I haven't seen it, but I'd guess it's not awful).

It's like John Cazale's career, but all in one year. (I also checked out Ward Bond and Jane Darwell, but they never had a year nearly as good as Mitchell's 1939 -- their great movies tended to be spread out). I also checked out Jimmy Stewart's career and I think his 1940 (The Philadelphia Story and The Shop Around the Corner) comes close to his 1939 though I'd imagine his Mr Smith ultimately nudges ahead of his (many) other great performances (with the sole exception of Wonderful Life, which I think is better). There are movies of Stewart's from 1939 and 1940 which I haven't seen, though so I can't speak to them. I'm a huge fan of Stewart, however, even if there are plenty of movies of his which I haven't seen.

I really like the Third Man film

Thinned.

By that criteria, all music is "old people music", given the passage of time.

Not really. Some music is of its era, some music transcends its era. Sinatra and Elvis are of the former.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you - sometimes it's good to relive the feeling of old times. But listening to Sinatra and Elvis is like listening to music out of a time capsule.

TCM just had After the Thin Man on yesterday or the day before. I noticed it in the listings, but did not watch it. That was the one with a very young Jimmy Stewart, and with Andy's favorite Harry Callahan-esque Nick Charles (William Powell) line, "That's mighty white of you." ...

Earlier, TCM played Anatomy of a Murder (1959), also with Jimmy Stewart, which I watched. Very good movie. Lee Remick was effing hot. I had it confused with another movie, called Witness for the Prosecution, a British film starring Charles Laughton. There is something similar in the plots, in that the wives are somehow perjuring themselves to get their guilty (or probably guilty) husbands cleared.

My favorite Elvis album is "That's the Way It Is," from 1970. It's got a bunch of country-rock songs in the Kristofferson vein, jampacked with lively workaday details, plus covers of the hits of the day like "I Just Can't Help Believin'" and "Gentle on My Mind." Like MJ, it gets lost in his overwhelming persona, but Elvis was a fantastic singer. It's worth hearing him sing just about anything.

Ben Stiller, 2004: Dodgeball, Envy, Along Came Polly, Meet the Fockers, AND Starsky and Hutch. Game, set, match.

"listening to Sinatra and Elvis is like listening to music out of a time capsule"--

well, this sounds plausible at first, and yet..

Hank William recordings? time capsule, absolutely
Louis Armstrong, hot 5s and hot 7s? time capsule!

The idea that popular recorded music can transcend its era in the way that you ask, given changes in vocal styles and production techniques, seems pretty shaky to me. Examples?

EDIT: I'd even go further, and say that it's of the essence of great popular music to index its era, rather than transcend it....

TCM just had After the Thin Man on yesterday or the day before. I noticed it in the listings, but did not watch it. That was the one with a very young Jimmy Stewart, and with Andy's favorite Harry Callahan-esque Nick Charles (William Powell) line, "That's mighty white of you."

I recall Myrna Loy used that phrase in the 1937 Loy-Powell film "Double Wedding," probably their weakest collaboration. (Some of it might have been caused by the death of Jean Harlow during filming, which severely affected Powell.)

I don't ever think I've seen a thread where so many smart people had so many intelligent opinions. (smile)

In some ways, Bing is sort of the musical equivalent of Mickey Mouse -- and that's not meant in a derisive manner. The early Crosby, like the early Mickey, had a wonderfully subversive charm about him, but it was largely ironed out by decade's end -- one by Decca, one by Disney -- resulting in a relatively bland, suburbanized character.

Good point, and a good analogy. And if you've ever seen the Disney cartoons up through roughly WWII (the shorts), you'd find it especially depressing to see the crap they've put out since then. But I defy anyone to come up with a more sidesplittingly funny mainstream (i.e G-rated) cartoon than Moving Day (1936). (I can't believe that this has now actually made it onto YouTube, but here it is in all its splendor.)

and the delightful Myrna Loy.

Oh goddammit. You've mentioned Myrna Loy, which means I either have to wander away from the site until this thread drops off of hot topics, or spend all my time talking about how much I like the Thin Man films.

And Myrna and William Powell made several other films together, most of which are top-class stuff.

Bill Powell is probably my all-time favorite actor -- I like that voice of his, that wit and sophistication. I can't imagine myself as Cary Grant -- he simply seems too superhuman for mere mortals like me -- but I can imagine myself as William Powell. Which means I can imagine myself romantically involved with Loy on screen and involved with (or married to) two other Hollywood goddesses, Lombard and Jean Harlow, both on- and off-screen.

I fourth the love for Powell and Loy, not just for Thin Man series but pretty much everything else they did beyond that. They really are the perfect screen couple, better even than Bogie/Bacall, Ladd/Lake (underrated) and Tracy/Hepburn (overrated, but that's just personal taste).

I hate to use the old cliche, but there's a certain amount of truth to it: On a percentage basis, Hollywood simply doesn't make that many movies for adults anymore. Or maybe it's just that they don't release that many movies, period. Actors like Powell and Stanwyck might be in half a dozen or more movies a year---How many times have our best actors like Travolta or Baldwin ever starred in even three features in a year? There's some terrific acting and directing talent out there these days, as good as there ever was, but when the emphasis is so much on special effects and commercial tie-ins, it's tough for that talent to be showcased to its fullest extent.

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The idea that popular recorded music can transcend its era in the way that you ask, given changes in vocal styles and production techniques, seems pretty shaky to me. Examples?

I'd have to respectfully disagree with that, at least for certain singers. I don't see how anyone can say that literally dozens of Sinatra songs, with their themes of melancholy and self-reflection, are anything BUT timeless. And jeezy peezy, anyone who listens to (one example of a zillion) Bobby Blue Bland's Members Only can transfer both its lament and its melody to any era. Because that's what great music does.

P.S. to Rich: I caught both the movie and the line in question. Sublime as ever.

Well I adore Myrna as well, she's probably my favorite actress, love her in her vamp roles...The Mask of Fu Manchu would be incredibly offensive if it weren't so damn awesome. Her work with Bill Powell is obviously wonderful, she also made a couple great pictures with Cary Grant, and The Best Years of Our Lives is among the greatest films ever made. Yet remarkably she never got nominated for Oscar.

And to the person who hadn't watched Only Angels Have Wings, it's wonderful. It's moody, atmospheric, and very Hawksian - with the male bonding in the face of danger, and the contrast of heroism vs cowardice.

Oh and "that's mighty white of you" is not meant to be racist, but rather it's the association of white with goodness and decency...more of a biblical interpretation.

They really are the perfect screen couple, better even than Bogie/Bacall

I have to disagree here. Of course, it may depend on what you are looking for. With Bogie and Bacall, the feelings between the two of them were real and powerful, and came through the screen, making their performances something very different from most screen pairings.

In baseball terms, classical is the Majors, jazz is AAA, and Punk is a blind, paraplegic t-ball league.

As the resident musicologist, I must take exception to this analogy. Different musical genres (different musical subcultures, really), though they often cross-fertilize each other, and are at their best when they do, are much more like different sports than different levels of the same sport. Rock musicians aren't trying to write developmental instrumental music, and university composers aren't (usually) trying to write rock music; how and why would these be directly compared to each other? Kobe Bryant isn't trying to play baseball, he's trying to play basketball. There's no point in considering him a low level baseball player.

Baseball, basketball, football, hockey--all different, all cool in their own way, and preferred by different people, same with music. Of course, baseball is the best ;)

This is serious, no joke, an hour before Jackson had his heart attack, I randomly decided to download his greatest hits History album. I had owned the album several years ago, but it had since been stolen. I picked yesterday to reacquire it.

So basically, I think I killed him.