[Dixielandjazz] Re: Dixielandjazz Digest, Vol 38, Issue 30

[Steve barbone]

"Stephen Heist" <steveheist at earthlink.net> wrote (about pop stars singing
OKOM tunes)

> The point is, I'm not saying imitate what THEY are doing...  But please
> realize that these are NEW albums with OKOM and people are buying them and
> listening to them!  Use it as a bridge...
> Just think of how some younger members of an audience would perk up if you
> said before playing a song, "Hey, here's a song by Queen Latifah!" or "How
> 'bout a little Rod Stewart right now?"

RIGHT ON STEVE HEIST. Like check out this NY Times review of Rod Stewart
singing the songs of the fifties. This album arguably does more for gaining
new audience for music of the fifties than all of us OKOM musicians/fans put
together. NUMBER 1 ON THE POP CHARTS????? WOW!!!!!!!!!

Whether "we" like it or not is immaterial.

Cheers,
Steve

THE NEW YORK TIMES - February 13, 2006 by JON PARELES

Barry Manilow
"The Greatest Songs of the Fifties"

"The Greatest Songs of the Fifties" by Barry Manilow.
 
The inexplicable Barry Manilow renaissance continues on "The Greatest Songs
of the Fifties," which hit the pop chart at No. 1 last week. In Mr.
Manilow's 1970's heyday, no one imagined that his modest voice would give
him a second career as an interpreter. But he hasn't been writing songs
lately. 

Like other aging pop stars, he has already made albums of Tin Pan Alley
standards, with chutzpah enough to redo an album of Frank Sinatra favorites.
Now he's on to the 1950's, which, some people may remember, gave birth to
rock 'n' roll. Not in the Manilow universe: this is an album of ballads, all
of which reached No. 1 in much better versions. Elvis Presley, the Everly
Brothers, Dinah Washington, Tommy Edwards and Frankie Avalon have no
worries. 

The new versions orchestrate the songs as pure old-fashioned easy listening.
There's no yearning, no mischief, no lust ‹ just an unctuous diligence; the
only dramatic tension is whether Mr. Manilow will go flat before the next
note. Strings are slathered on thickly, horns are muted and any drums are a
distant rustle. A listener could almost escape into the sticky-sweet
perfection of the arrangements, but then along comes Mr. Manilow, right up
front and earnestly trying to emote, which for him means laying on the
vibrato. 

He doesn't bring on guests who might outsing him except for a version of
"Sincerely" with Phyllis McGuire, who sang it in 1955 with the McGuire
Sisters. They were one of the white groups that covered 1950's R&B hits in
blander, better-selling versions, yet Ms. McGuire still sounds friskier than
he does. He is presenting the illusory 1950's of conservative mythology:
placid, cozy, chaste and oblivious. Even if rock 'n' roll hadn't arrived,
those years couldn't have been this dull. JON PARELES