Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop by Bob Stanley - Chapters 31 to 40

31 Someone to watch over me: Vocal Refrains

The end of the second world war sees the demise of the big bands and jazz. (Maybe partly true). It was "singers who began to call the shots". They were leaving the bands and going solo. We hear about Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. But who was Dick Haynes, I had never heard of him. The author goes on to look at music in post war UK, but this was all so boring.

Johnny Mercer was an important song writer, many of his songs are listed here. Towards the end there is mention of Frankie Laine, but no mention of his biggest hits that I can remember: High Noon, Mule Train and Riders in the Sky. Maybe too low brow for Bob.

32 We had to break up the band: Post-War Jazz

After the war "the big ballrooms across the country ..... and there were hundreds of them ..... just died a slow death". So instead we hear about Bebop, that form of jazz where "mass popularity was never their concern". Although Stan Kenton flourished with a large band while others were working in much smaller units. 

33 Call me irresponsible: Frank Sinatra

This is maybe the first transition to what we now know as pop, or popular music. However this is one of the worst chapters. It starts with a sycophantic introduction and a comparison to Norman Wisdom. Why? Absolutely ridiculous. This chapter is basically a biography that can be found in any of those on Sinatra. However after his successes, we do hear about the bad times, a 1952 concert at the Coconut Grove was "thinly attended". Frank was dropped by his record label, his agent and had no film contract. Not only that but he was "massively in debt to the taxman". But then came a turning point. He starred in From Here to Eternity and an Oscar in 1953.

34 Saturday night fish fry: Rhythm and Blues

Now we are talking. On the 24th October 1942, Billboard magazine inaugurated a sales chart called "Harlem Hit Parade". The first black music chart. By 1949 this chart had become "Rhythm and Blues". There were many new labels distributing this now popular music in a "burgeoning alternative pop world". There is a lot about Louis Jordan's Tympany Five. I had to go onto YouTube to see this comprised saxophone, guitar, keyboards, drums and a female vocalist. Louis introduced that distorted electric guitar on the track that gave this chapter it's name.

Unfortunately the rest of this chapter is mainly about the business men such as Jay Mayo Williams, Ahmet Ertegun, Lester Melrose and then two of whom I had heard. Leonard Chess of Chess records and Alan Lomax. We could have instead heard about how it influenced later R&B.

35 California Suite: The Long Player

Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, the LP was that new 33rpm disc "made of smooth vinyl", and "the past provided a ready made catalogue". Orchestras were the big benefactors, even Mantovani in the UK. I liked the part about Duke Ellington's music getting on to an LP: Masterpieces by Ellington (1951) and Ellington Uptown (1952). They were "landmark albums for Columbia Records". Highly recommended was Ellington's album Such Sweet Thunder. It's all on YouTube. We then go back to Sinatra and the mid fifties magic that included the classic album Songs for Swinging Lovers (1956). This led to some words about the arrangers coming to the fore such as Nelson Riddle.

36 It's Mitch Miller's world and we just live in it: The 45

What a strange title for this massive development. He was the classic A&R man - recording artists such as Vic Damone and Frankie Laine. I remember many of the big hits from this time such as I Believe and artists such as Johnnie Ray, Rosemary Clooney and Guy Mitchell. All from my younger days. But I didn't know of Bob Merrill even though I knew many of his big hits. I can still sing bits of these such as "There's a pawnshop on the corner of Pittsburg Pennsylvania and you only have to pay five or ten, five or ten" (whatever that is), Who is to blame for "Pretty little black eyed Susie" and "She wears red feathers and a hooly hooly skirt" and even Tony Bennett's "A Stranger in Paradise". All Mitch Miller productions. We hear much about Tony, reminding me of seeing him at the Odeon Hammersmith. We are then onto the early fifties in the UK, even a mention for Radio Luxemburg and Jack Jackson. And all those big stars at the London Palladium. But then why spoil all this great stuff with going back to Vera Lynn and Gracie Fields in wartime??? As I said earlier, sometimes this book is all over the place.

37 Breaks a new heart every day: Peggy Lee

Not sure she broke my heart, but I do have an old LP somewhere. Norma Dolores Egstrom had a Norwegian/Swedish background and became Peggy Lee. Now that I didn't know. She was a vocalist with the Benny Goodman Sextet and recorded "Where or When" inversion  1941 when she was 21. It's on You Tube. By 1945 she was a big star, "one of the definitive jazz vocalists". She could experiment with phrasing on any recording. One song I remember is Fever. I had to look for Peggy's version of the Ray Davies song I Go to Sleep from 1965. We hear about her longevity with vocals for the movie The Lady and the Tramp, her wonderful I'm a Woman and so many more. This part ends with a song that Paul McCartney gave to her called Let's Love.

38 Almost like praying: Post-War Broadway

This part is mainly about how "Oklahoma! had rewritten the rules of Broadway". The very biggest hits of the next twenty years would have Rogers and Hammerstein's names on them. The King and I, The Sound of Music, Carousel and South Pacific. We hear a lot about more musicals, all the way to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Although the author prefers Irving Berlin and 42nd Street.

39 Squeeze me: Vocal Jazz

Of course this part concentrates on Ella Fitzgerald who is "in a class of her own". There are other female vocalists such as Dinah Washington and Julie London. But is the latter's Cry Me a River really jazz? I had never heard of Anita O'Day even though it "may have been the highlight of Jazz on a Summer's Day". But why oh why at the very end of this part do we get Chuck Berry and the fantastic Sweet Little Sixteen? It's because this is the future and the author is not impressed, unlike yours's truly. 

40 Experiments with mice: British Big Bands

Big bands in the UK were still going strong in the late 1940's. Joe Loss, Lew Stone (who I didn't know), Bert Ambrose, Harry Roy and, of course, Billy Cotton ("Wakey wake-eeey). The Billy Cotton Band Show was on the BBC Light Programme every Sunday lunchtime from 1949 to 1968. I can remember we listened most Sundays in the 1950's. 

From 1952 "the BBC formed it's own show band under the direction of Cyril Stapleton. It also featured singer Matt Monroe and guitarist Bert Weedon. (Both have entries on this blog). Johnny Dankworth formed his Dankworth Seven in 1951 which became "a full orchestra two years later". (He founded The Stables music venue in 1970 with Cleo Laine). Another big band was under the direction of Ted Heath who had vocalists Lita Rose and Dickie Valentine. There was also the bands of Jack Parnell and Ray Ellington, the latter famous for the music for The Goon Show. And finally a nice page about the John Barry Seven and his orchestra for the Bond movies.

The main border - February and June

 

The photo above is the only one I have of the main border in February. I just wanted to compare it with how it looks in June.

Campanula persicifolia and portenschlagiana

 

The Campanula persicifolia arrived in the wildflower border a couple of years ago. I cannot remember it flowering so well. Very different to the Campanula portenschlagiana around the conservatory that has been there years.

Philadelphus Dainty Lady and Belle Etoile

 

We have two Philadelphus shrubs in the garden. The one above is "Dainty Lady" and the one below is "Belle Etoile". My post of the 5th June 2020 said they had been planted some years before. Here they are still going strong. They will both need a major prune after flowering.

Penstemon Arctic White and Electric Blue

 

These two Penstemon are either side of the step in the dwarf wall. In fact I had to trim their edges as it was blocking the path through. I posted about them on 8th June last year (see photo below) but they have now grown far larger. The Arctic White is not the best shape due to the bulbs that grew there in the spring. These have now been extracted to be planted elsewhere. 

Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning, The Phoenician Scheme and The Uninvited

 

All about Tom. Maybe he's got too old at 62 to be a believable hero. And why show off his bare upper body when, despite all the gym work, it cannot disguise it's age.  I thought this was the least successful of all the Mission Impossible films. You know it's all about Tom when he goes off on his own, leaving the rest of the team to do something different. Especially when the Hayley Atwell and Simon Pegg parts are the best. It's all a bit predictable, lots of fun, but the Pinewood under water sequence goes on far too long. Actually the whole film is too long, cutting out half an hour would have been much better. Especially the sequence on the plane. Did nobody tell Tom less is more. I did like Katy M O'Brian as Kodiak and Hannah Waddingham as the Admiral. Now that is good casting. See interview in June's Sight and Sound magazine and my post of 27th May.

I will always go to see a Wes Anderson movie. See post of 27th May 2025. This was, perhaps, even more bonkers than normal. He seems to have written it for the lead, Benecio del Toro. There is, as always, a huge amount of dialogue, it's sometimes hard to keep up. Maybe you have to see it more than once. But the production design is always glorious. Hard to say the same for the story. However, Anderson always surrounds himself with the cream of acting talent. I especially liked Alex Jennings in a small role as Broadcloth, a servant. Very little to say but conveys so much with his face. (We saw him in The Liar in 1990 at The Old Vic). Mia Threapleton (daughter of Kate Winslet) was great as Sister Liesel and Michael Cera never better. Even our very own Jason Watkins turns up. 

This is the first major film from Nadia Conners, her screenplay and direction promise much for the future. I was going to say that it felt more like a play when I then read in May's Sight and Sound magazine that it was "originally conceived as a stage play, the film is heavy on theatrical conceits". In the theatre it may not have been seen by many. Even my local cinema had it playing just one afternoon. However, on film we are close up withe the character's insecurities, whether high on drink or drugs or not. It all takes place one evening as Rose (an excellent Elizabeth Reaser) and her husband Sammy host a party in swanky Hollywood Hills. Attending are mostly all middle aged affluent residents of the city. These include the obnoxious Rufus Sewel. Not invited is ninety year old Helen (Lois Smith) who turns up, seemingly lost. She is rescued by Rose who maybe seems more interested in Lois than any of the invitees. Lois inhabits the film as a kind of ghost. But in the background are the old tensions between Rose and her husband who seems permanently angry. We find out more later. He only seems to relax when it's his turn to sit down with Lois. Then who should turn up but Lucien (Pedro Pascal) an old lover of Rose. Tensions rise. More drink is consumed. Adam Nayman in Sight and Sound calls it "a small but real achievement". There are just so few of these movies around.

Alan Yentob RIP

 

It was Alan Yentob, who died on the 24th May, who was partly instrumental in me starting this blog. This is what I said in my very first post on the 9th December 2006.  It was watching Alan Yentob's wonderful programme "Imagine" about the Internet that prompted me to start a blog. 

There are many obituaries online, especially about his series Imagine on the BBC. I have seen  some of these over the years, less so recently. There are posts here for his interviews with David Chipperfield and Tom Stoppard.