Category Archive: Modern Music
Dionne Live
(Dionne Warwick, Thebarton Theatre, 12 November 2016) They make them tough in Jersey. Dionne Warwick wowed (and at times, admonished) a rapturous Adelaide crowd on a rainy Saturday night with a legendary set of songs, belted out with feeling, exquisite timing and surprising resonance from the seventy-something star. Dionne was warm and funny, kindly but firmly asking several rude or ignorant people to zip-it (‘I’ve got the microphone’) and to stow those annoying, flashing camera-phones. You’re at the show, folks! No need to get a grainy, washed-out snap to enjoy the moment! Dressed elegantly in golden shantung with purple drapery, floating about…
Continue Reading →La Mer
(Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1898)
Songs in Our Heart # 50 La Mer (Charles Trénet version) (written by Charles Trenet; released 1946) [Like drinking champagne at the French seaside. “A berce mon coeur pour la vie!”]
Continue Reading →Leonard Cohen
(photo by Rama)
Leonard Cohen (21 September, 1934 to 7 November, 2016) With a voice even less impressive and more throwaway than Dylan, like a sombre, kindly and perhaps slightly whiskey-giddy uncle, singing his niece to sleep. A sublime indifference to Fame; a gorgeous disregard for money matters, such that he failed to notice his management was cleaning him out. A true poet’s sense, and it is rare, for true poetry to bind with popular music to advantage. Except he did it, in First We Take Manhattan, Dance Me To The End Of Love, Famous Blue Raincoat, So Long, Marianne, and one of the best…
Continue Reading →Here Comes That Rainbow Again
Songs in Our Heart # 49 Here Comes That Rainbow Again (Kris Kristofferson) (written by Kris Kristofferson; released c 1980) [Far better to hear this simple, moving song about poverty and generosity than plough through The Grapes of Wrath.]
Continue Reading →Wake Up
Songs in Our Heart # 48 Wake Up (XTC) (written by Colin Moulding; released October 1984) [A sort-of clattering homage to Paul McCartney’s “Another Day,” with a great drum and choir fade-out.]
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