Old, Popular & Classical

John Watt

Member
That "Bumble Boogie" is the best new video I've seen for a long time.
"New, Old and Classical" is turning out to be one of the best thread titles ever.

The last time I heard "The Flight of the Bumblebee" was in an Australian movie.
A concert pianist is in a bar and gets tired of his environment,
so he goes over to the piano and starts playing, enchanting the entire room.

I've only seen boogie-woogie and jitter-bug dancing like this in Afro-American productions.
I really wish they had shown the musicians on a bandstand.
This is the only Hollywood movie out-take I have seen that comes close,
as far as athletic ability goes.

Hey elderpiano! I'm still posting here too.
If Ella Beck is interested, in real life these are The Winter Sisters from England.


 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
When the first "Emerson, Lake and Palmer" album came out, I borrowed it from a friend.
I learned "Take a Pebble", playing the piano part and singing it.
This live version is different. Keith Emerson isn't playing the basic piano part for the song,
he's riffing off the chords while Greg Lake sings and plays bass.
When the vocals end, Keith starts playing solo piano as the record was,
and as he gets into what may be copied from a classical piece, the drums and bass stop.
You can hear some of the vocal parts, the take a pebble, during this piece.
When Keith stops, Greg is sitting with a lute style guitar, when he's not a very good guitarist.
The bass and drums stopping while the piano player is playing? These guys aren't jazzy enough.

 
Last edited:

Ella Beck

Member
Here's a number from this century, but it perfectly exemplifies the thread title Old, Popular & Classical, because it's an Indie song based on Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

 

John Watt

Member
Ella Beck! Too bad you're into the perfect exemplification of your own past.
If you listened to the Emerson, Lake and Palmer song,
you might recognize the classical piece that's the center section, or piano solo.

They also did "Fanfare for the Common Man", but I'm not going to embed that.
 

John Watt

Member
Ella Beck! I am starting to accede to you fastidious approach to thread use.
Do songs where English lyrics were used instead of the original foreign language count here?
Right away I'm thinking "My Way", an Italian song that Paul Anka wrote English words for.
Led Zeppelin was successfully sued a few times for putting out songs under their name,
when it was an older blues man who wrote them.
I very seldom sing the actual words to a song. I update them or sing to who is in front of me,
I know that would be inappropriate postings here.
 

Ella Beck

Member
Here's a pop record from 1964 - Julie Rogers, The Wedding - that makes play of the classical theme of Ave Maria:

 

John Watt

Member
This band is a strange combination of rock guitar, a Gibson 335,
with a Fender bass and rock drums, dressed like bands like the Kinks and Hermans' Hermits,
except for the keyboardist with a Farfisa.
Here in Welland, when I sing "Ave Maria" I sing "a va Maria", which is Quebecois for "where are you going Maria",
and then I sing about where she could go in Welland, and that's not good,
even if I get operatic with it, using a slacker hip-hop beat. And that's in A minor.

Something tells me Ella Beck picked this video because she used to have hair like that.
Looking at the band, so did I, a Beatles cut, only for me, it was for an Elvis show-band in 1979.

This is enough use of this text block, so I'm not going to embed a similar video.
If I did, I'd use one by Petula Clark. She also had Jimi Hendrix on her TV show,
one of his better appearances back then, changing the rehearsed song and playing through the credits,
because she cut him loose. She also had this kind of hair at the time.
Jackie O did it best.
 
Last edited:

Ella Beck

Member
Here's something that in fashion terms is old (1980), was a 'popular music' release, and uses a classical theme - from J. S. Bach.

It's Sky's Toccata - and it's fabulous! :)

 

John Watt

Member
I have never heard of Sky before and that was very good.
They must be a real band, and a hard working band,
to be playing all that together from memory.
They've got a lot to live up to if they every get back together for a reunion.
 
Top