I saw the superb Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ this past Sunday which of course led to a deep Stephen dive on YouTube. Of primary importance in the canon of filmed Stephen stuff is D.A. Pennebaker’s remarkable documentation of the marathon recording session of the original
Above dig ‘The Olympics’ doing their hit song ‘The Hully Gully’ on a Los Angeles based TV show called ‘Hollywood A-Go Go’ which aired in syndication in 1965–1966. The song entered Billboard’s Hot Top 100 chart at position #98–three weeks later it would peak at #72 {for 1 week} and
Tough guy actor George Raft began his career in the cabarets of Times Square in the 1920s as a ‘hoofer’, period slang for a male dancer who didn’t specialize in formal dance. Hoofers were a breed unto themselves, generally self-taught street-wise kids whose athleticism and panache could land them in
Yesterday I posted about German Singer/Bandleader/Performance Artist Max Raabe. One of the things that Raabe and his Palast Orchestra does that distinguishes them from ‘nostalgia’ acts is create a compelling visual experience in their shows, using different color schemes, shadows and mood lighting and other techniques to bring you into
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiaNQG7HPpc When I was at the Deauville Film Festival in 2010 I was invited to see a live performance of a German orchestra that specialized in playing music of the 1920s and 30s. With great enthusiasm the person who invited me explained that the front man/singer was a perfect replica
CLICK HERE TO WATCH the three-and-a-half minute screen test that Marlene Dietrich made for ‘The Blue Angel’ in 1929. This is presumably the first time a camera fully captured the multi-faceted genius of this ground-breaking performer. The film’s director, Josef Von Sternberg, also directed the test and used two angles;
See that top video of New York City in 1956? See the video below it of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier Book 2? Roll them both simultaneously (the NYC footage has no sound) and spend a few minutes of your Friday taking a poignant time travel trip to a New York
Yesterday I posted legendary AM pop DJ Dan Ingram’s broadcast during the Great East Coast Blackout of 1965. Today we’re digging excerpts of Ingram on his 77 WABC afternoon music show from February 26th, 1975. This is classic Ingram stuff–a lesson in pure DJ word jamming, a lost art (I
On November 9, 1965, shortly after 5PM, New York City began experiencing the ominous signs of an impending blackout due to a gradual loss of available electricity. The cause of the failure was the setting of a protective relay on one of the transmission lines near Niagara Falls. The safety
I don’t know what the hell this little clip is but I think it’s fabulous. It appears to simply be footage of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin dancing in a smoky nightclub to their recording of Gainsbourg’s song ‘La Decadance’, intercut with footage of people speaking French with no subtitles.