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angelhummel · 4 years ago

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So like everyone in my household clearly knows that I am the Gleek Of The Week every single week. But lately my sister has been questioning my authoriglee by doing Glee related things without me. Listening to Glee playlists when I’m not in the car, watching the Glee concert movie when I’m asleep

Anyway so she comes up to me tonight and starts talking about her rewrite of the entire series. And I got a little lost bc I swear she talked about two different series and also a spin off so I got a little confused but here’s what I sort of remember:

The oldest students are Quinn, Rachel, Mercedes, Mike, Puck, aaand Tina? Bc she tried to order it according to the actors’ ages and most of them were born in ‘86

Meaning Kurt is one of the youngest original members since Chris is the baby of the group and he’d be a freshman at the beginning

Artie and Blaine aaand I think Santana and Brittany are sophomores

When the first batch graduates, Mercedes, Puck, and Mike go to California while Rachel, Quinn, and Tina go to NY

Rachel doesn’t harass Carmen and doesn’t get into NYADA on her first try but she goes to NY anyway and of course she eventually gets in

Brittana doesn’t happen and Brittany isn’t even bi, but Santana is bi

But the main lesbian relationship is Faberry bc she’s always been a Faberry stan

Oh okay one thing I really liked. Tina and Artie stay together through the start of s2 but eventually they start to grow apart until they naturally break up. But they’d been picked to do the duet during s2 sectionals so they sing I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and it’s like a cute little send up of their relationship

Santana goes to California when she graduates so Sancedes can hang out and have lots of great duets together

But eventually they both move to NY cause that’s where most of the spin off takes place. I think she basically left Puck in the dust but Mike pops in from time to time in NY

Also Blaine and Artie go to NY

Brody is there for like 5 seasons. We stan Brody in this household

Finn dies in Kurt’s senior year, and that’s also the year Burt gets sick. So it puts Kurt off going to NY for several months until Burt convinces him to go

The new characters are actually integrated naturally into the story so we grow to care about them without them being shoved in our faces. A no brainer

Kitty isn’t there (which is bull bc I thought she liked Kitty) and Melissa is there but she’s not Marley. But Marley is there but played by Samantha Marie Ware. I did my best to keep up

Oh also Hunter is in NY for some reason?? Bc there had to be an antagonist there lmao

Now onto all the musicals they performed...

I don’t remember if she kept Cabaret or got rid of it, not that it mattered

They still do Rocky Horror but they go to a midnight screening and act it out with the movie

I think Chicago was next. And Mercedes’s issue was that everyone expected her to be Matron Mama Morton but she didn’t wanna do that part just bc it was expected. So she gets to be Velma, and Santana is Mama Morton. And Kurt wanted to be Billy but Blaine got that part, and Kurt is Amos. So we get a full version of Mr. Cellophane yay. Also Rachel is Roxie, duh

She also mentioned Carrie and Heathers but ?? idk when they would be oops. She mostly wanted to throw them in there so that Riverdale couldn’t get their hands on them

Then there was Into The Woods. I know she said Kurt would be Jack and Blaine would be The Baker. Aaand I think Santana is The Witch which I’m all for

And then in the last season they’d do Grease bc it’d be like a full circle moment since they did “You’re The One That I Want” in the pilot <3 And Jake would be Danny and Marley would be Sandy. But SMW is Marley don’t forget

Oh and Rachel would be at NYADA for a year and a half before getting the lead in this new show. But not FG, just a new show. And so she throws everything into it and drops out of school, puts all her eggs in this basket. The season finale is her opening night and spirits are high and it’s great

And then the next season basically picks up immediately after and the show is a huge flop and closed pretty much immediately and so it’s basically like the start of s6 just for a Broadway show instead of a television show

So Rachel is embarrassed and feels dumb and goes back to Ohio to wallow and be sad. And then the last season is basically just Rachel coaching the new glee club in Ohio and the old characters only come back for like holidays and stuff

And that’s when they put on Grease, when she’s in charge, so yeah

Anyway yeah that’s everything I remember off the top of my head <3

#glee #my thoughts #mine #really my sister's but what can you do #long post #glee au

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eveningstarcatcher · 4 years ago

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Today I’ve been singing I’d Give it All For You. Songs for a New World in general, but this song specifically has been stuck in my head.

When I was in 9th grade my older sister’s friend sang a different song from Songs for a New World in our annual fall cabaret and I loved it. I remember standing in the darkness of the wings listening to her sing about missed opportunities and I cried.

That wouldn’t be me, I told myself. I wouldn’t pass up the chance to have the stars and the moon for anything in the world, least of all a yacht.

A few months after that, we had our midterm in Theatre Arts (the school forced us to have a written exam… don’t ask…) and part of the test was to listen to I’d Give it All for You and write a story for it. There is no explanation in the show, no plot, nothing outside of the song itself. So many opportunities for interpretation and creativity.

I was hooked - captivated by the rolling piano, the melody, the longing, the realization, the confession. So, I got my hands on the piano book that resided in the music library in the chorus room and I learned how to play it.

(Sidenote: Jason Robert Brown writes really complex piano accompaniments, so this was quite a task for little me. It’s a challenge for older me, too. Good thing we’re both determined.)

And now, 15 years later, I sit here at my piano with my own copy of the book, well worn and loved, and I wonder...

The duet is tucked towards the back of the book. It starts with Man (the characters in this show don’t have names). He sings of the time his love was gone and what he did then. He had a house. A huge house with land and silver shutters and a driveway of marble.

And I tried to believe it. It was better without you. I was safer alone.

No.

I’d give it all for you…

A full verse and chorus of just Man.

And I sit here. I play every note of it. I don’t sing.

Then Woman begins. She travelled while she was gone. She stared at the stars and she stopped at lots of diners and she tried to believe that she was better without him… but no…

And I sing.

So, here’s the question: Why do I play his part? Why don’t I skip it? Why not just sing my part and forget the rest until I have someone to sing it with me?

And here’s the answer I found rattling around in my heart: I’m leaving room for you.

I never want you to feel like you don’t belong here. I don’t want you to think I will have to shift things around for you to fit. No. There’s already a place for you, just waiting for you to step into it.

I’m running from time and walking through fire and dreams just don’t come true… but now there’s you.

I feel like I’m running from time. For so many years I’ve felt like I was just passing time, waiting for life to really start. But I have realized that it started without me and now I’m rushing to catch up. I’m learning how to live while also learning how to live during a pandemic. It’s tricky. But the thing I’m learning is I don’t have to do it alone.

Nothing about us was perfect or clear, but when paradise calls me I’d rather be here...

Here’s my point. There will always be room for you. Whenever you need me. And when you don’t. I’m here and there’s room for you just as you are. Smiling or sobbing, dressed up or in pjs, talkative or quiet, big things or little things.

And when you want to talk and you think “no, she’s probably busy” or “I don’t want to bother her with my problems�� please remember..

I’d give it all for you

I won’t pass up on my chance to experience the stars and the moon you bring into my life. Come sing with me. We can sing anything you like. I’ll play for you. I’ll listen as your voice soars, support you with the piano. And when it’s my turn, I’ll join in and we’ll sing together.

#personal #I’m here for you friends #music makes me feel things #getting all feelings-y again

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arabellaflynn · 6 years ago

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About a week ago, I crewed a show at the studio theater for a non-profit outfit up from New York. The guys who run it are friends of our executive artistic director, and they come up two or three times a year. I like them; I dealt with them a bunch when I was at the box office, because when you're the most experienced person they have around they hand you all of the EAD's friends, and I have an unofficial standing request to work their shows even when I'm not the only crew who is both in town and not drowning in finals. One of the guys, as it turns out, is laid up with an injury right now, so the other one had to fly solo, on top of performing in the show. I ran into him coming down the stairs as I was going up, and as soon as he saw me he just lit up like, oh, it's you! How are you are you working are you going to be my box office again! I told him I'd swapped over to doing tech and he asked if I was disappointed that I didn't get to dress up anymore. I'm not often visibly rattled. The internal monologue is a different matter. My mouth was making bubbly, sociable conversation, while my lizard brain was huddled in the back of my skull, peering suspiciously out through a slit in the blinds, going, "I don't understand, you are a producer, why do you know who I am?" Because frankly, for the most part, they don't. Aside from the yawning chasm between tech and talent at all levels of the entertainment industry, producing a show is an undertaking not entirely unlike juggling an armload of emotionally-compromised cats to a series of increasingly short deadlines. It's not personal. They have much more pressing things to do than keep track of the minion who is assembling their rented tables. [Belated recollection #1: This group comes back every year to book their spring show in our cabaret theater. This producer gets a gentle reminder from the event staff every year that he is in fact paying us to clean up after his show, and he does not have to help us. This reminder fails every year, and he ends up striking half of the tables by himself.] [Belated recollection #2: The dress code for front of house in the studio theater is, in its entirety, "wear black". I used to entertain myself by dressing splashy. The first time he got a load of one of my box office outfits, he asked to take a picture, so he could show his house manager in NYC and tell her to, and I quote, "step up her game". I would have assumed he was flirting except that he is, to the best of my knowledge and in roughly descending order of relevance: gay, taken, and twice the age he probably thinks I am.] By the end of then night I was like, you know what? He clearly likes me and thinks I am an actual human. He co-directs a non-profit whose mission is providing opportunities to dancers and multi-modal movement artists. I hate pestering people about work when they're trying to do other work, but I bet if I catch him after the performance I can get him to talk shop for a bit and give me some career advice. Or life advice, which is pretty much the same thing in the arts. God knows I need some. It was a brilliant plan, and it was chugging along beautifully right up until the part where he derailed it by inviting me to our EADs birthday party. Actually, he asked me first if he'd be seeing me there. I thought he was talking about a different event entirely, because why the fuck would I be at our director's actual personal birthday party? I have no idea what he thinks I do there. Officially, stage crew and event staff are one rung up from the bottom of the ladder, and that only because we get a per-show contract that specifies they will be paying us in money. (Unofficially, I have a lot more clout than that, but only because of longevity and institutional knowledge. It works only irregularly because, you know, unofficial. Nobody else at my pay grade has enough social capital to rattle any cages.) The office staff have meetings we don't go to, lunches we're not invited to, and loads of conversations we're not a part of. A large part of the reason I know as much as I do is because they like to have meetings out in the lobby when "no one" is around -- which is to say, they have forgotten that I am at the reception desk and that I can eavesdrop in at least five languages. I know one of them is getting married in the fall, and I also know that there is a 0% chance I will be invited to the wedding, or any wedding-related activities. They're great people to work around, and most of the time they're even reasonable people to work for, but there is this unspoken assumption that we're all going to go home to different planets at the end of the day. It took him like three tries to invite me to one party because I could not for the life of me figure out why he was telling the help all about the director's birthday plans. It finally got down to me pointing out that I had none of the details necessary for attending said party -- such as, for example, the time and date it was taking place -- because I had not received an invitation, and him telling me to go poke the EAD's assistant to get one. Then he hugged me and left to catch his train back to New York. Have you ever spent an entire day trying to get useful work done with your lizard brain jumping up and down in the back of your skull shouting things like, YOU JUST WROTE AN EMAIL TO SOMEONE'S EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TELLING THEM THAT AN IMPORTANT PERSON JUST TOLD YOU TO INVITE YOURSELF TO ANOTHER IMPORTANT PERSON'S PARTY, SINCE WHEN IS THIS A THING YOU DO? It's really annoying. It also does not go away when the assistant replies to your email to say she's put you on the guest list. That just adds a counterpoint all about, YOU ARE ON THE GUEST LIST FOR A PARTY THAT HAS AN ACTUAL GUEST LIST MAINTAINED BY AN ACTUAL ASSISTANT WHOSE JOB IS TO MAINTAIN THESE THINGS WHAT HOW WHY. I'm not in objection to any of this. Clearly I have made myself a friend. The context is just really doing a number on my brain. One of the reasons I was so good at that job was that I was charming and helpful when you were looking right at me, and I was completely out of sight and out of mind otherwise. Nobody paid attention to me because nobody had to; I just ran around and did things and they didn't have to think about it. The class division between management and minions there also irritates me on a regular basis, mainly because it means people don't talk to each other about really obvious stuff, and it takes me a while to cotton on when I run into someone who is either entirely ignorant of it, or entirely indifferent to it, which this dude plainly is. Which of these is the case is an open question. Judging from what I've seen of his performances, whatever got his attention is the same thing that keeps getting attention from the ballroom people. Everything I have ever personally seen him do on stage has been, at some fundamental level, experimentation with and exploration of the delicate clockwork of interpersonal connections. The last piece I was witness to was a duet that I can only describe as an intimate tap dance, a phrase which I encourage you to not think about too hard, lest it stop working. I saw him run it with his dance partner in an empty theater before one of the shows. There was a ringing silence when it ended, as the two of them had to re-adjust to a world that contained more things than tap shoes and each other. He was doing comedy ballet panto at one of our holiday shows last year, and the joke he ran with was still that he kept getting way too closely intertwined with the other dancers in increasingly outlandish ways. He's done a lot of pieces with his co-director and performing partner of 25+ years that are literally just creating a shared pattern and turning it around over and over again, so the audience can see it from all of its many intricate sides, and saying, look at all the marvelous ways this fits together! This seems to be a capital-T Thing for him, and it's probably the same capital-T Thing the Eccentric is aiming for with bachata, and that the flamenco dancers get from chasing duende, and possibly that Ye Ballroom Instructor was going for when he quit actually asking me to dance and started just walking in my general direction with his hand out. Normally, I err on the side of assuming that folks talk to me because I'm friendly and I'm in front of them, but these people keep zeroing in on me. It's becoming a pattern. right down to the part where they are super confused when I don't immediately realize what's going on. I'm just like, I'm happy you have decided we are friends! But I'm unsure when this happened! Sorry for the confusion, I'm adjusting! I like to think I'm quicker to catch on now, what with this being my third or fourth time through this dance in as many years, but it's also a terrifying conclusion to come to, mainly because jumping is the only way to get there. One, they think they're being obvious and are bewildered when I have questions, and two, the more important someone thinks this stuff is the more likely they are to gnaw their own arm off at the elbow to escape having any kind of conversation about it. Breaks the hell out of the whole 'back away and look at this logically' tactic. Based on history, the correct course of action here is to go to the damn party and bluff like I'm not utterly confused until that is actually true. And also possibly find out if he knows swing or merengue, because I can lead those without stepping on anybody too much. from Blogger http://bit.ly/2JBk3mV via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

#IFTTT #Blogger #Unsolicited Advice

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blackkudos · 8 years ago

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Big Joe Turner

Joseph Vernon "Joe" Turner, Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985), best known as Big Joe Turner, was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri, United States. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." While he had his greatest fame during the 1950s with his rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", Turner's career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, with the Hall lauding him as "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues'".

Career

Early days

Known variously as The Boss of the Blues, and Big Joe Turner (due to his 6'2", 300+ lbs stature), Turner was born in Kansas City. His father was killed in a train accident when Joe was only four years old. He first discovered a love of music in his involvement at church. He began singing on street corners for money, quitting school at age fourteen to work in Kansas City's nightclubs, first as a cook, and later as a singing bartender. He became known eventually as The Singing Barman, and worked in such venues as The Kingfish Club and The Sunset, where he and his piano playing partner Pete Johnson became resident performers. The Sunset was managed by Piney Brown. It featured "separate but equal" facilities for caucasian patrons. Turner wrote "Piney Brown Blues" in his honor and sang it throughout his entire career.

At that time Kansas City nightclubs were subject to frequent raids by the police, but as Turner recounts, "The Boss man would have his bondsmen down at the police station before we got there. We'd walk in, sign our names and walk right out. Then we would cabaret until morning."

His partnership with boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson proved fruitful. Together they went to New York City in 1936, where they appeared on a playbill with Benny Goodman, but as Turner recounts, "After our show with Goodman, we auditioned at several places, but New York wasn't ready for us yet, so we headed back to K.C.". Eventually they were witnessed by the talent scout, John H. Hammond in 1938, who invited them back to New York to appear in one of his "From Spirituals to Swing" concerts at Carnegie Hall, which were instrumental in introducing jazz and blues to a wider American audience.

Due in part to their appearance at Carnegie Hall, Turner and Johnson had a major success with the song "Roll 'Em Pete". The track, basically a collection of traditional blues lyrics featured one of the earliest recorded examples of a back beat. It was a song that Turner recorded many times, with various combinations of musicians, over the ensuing years.

1939 to 1950

In 1939, along with boogie players Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, they began a residency at Café Society, a nightclub in New York City, where they appeared on the same playbill as Billie Holiday and Frank Newton's band. Besides "Roll 'Em, Pete", Turner's best-known recordings from this period are probably "Cherry Red", "I Want A Little Girl" and "Wee Baby Blues". "Cherry Red" was recorded in 1939 for the Vocalion label, with Hot Lips Page on trumpet and a full band in attendance. The next year Turner contracted with Decca and recorded "Piney Brown Blues", with Johnson on piano.

In 1941, he went to Los Angeles and performed in Duke Ellington's revue Jump for Joy in Hollywood. He appeared as a singing policeman in a comedy sketch called "He's on the Beat". Los Angeles was his home for a time, and during 1944 he worked in Meade Lux Lewis's Soundies musical movies. Although he sang on the soundtrack recordings, he was not present for filming, and his vocals were mouthed by comedian Dudley Dickerson for the camera. In 1945 Turner and Pete Johnson established their bar in Los Angeles, The Blue Moon Club.

That same year he contracted with National Records company, and recorded under Herb Abramson's supervision. His first hit single was a cover of Saunders King's "S.K. Blues" (1945). He recorded the songs "My Gal's A Jockey" and the risqué "Around The Clock" the same year, and the Aladdin company released "Battle of the Blues", a duet with Wynonie Harris. Turner stayed with National until 1947, but none of his recordings were great sellers. In 1950, he released the song "Still in the Dark" on Freedom Records.

Turner made many albums with Johnson, Art Tatum, Sammy Price, and other jazz groups. He recorded with several recording companies and also performed with the Count Basie Orchestra. During his career, Turner was part of the transition from big bands to jump blues to rhythm and blues, and finally to rock and roll. Turner was a master of traditional blues verses and at Kansas City jam sessions he could swap choruses with instrumental soloists for hours.

Success during the 1950s

In 1951, while performing with the Count Basie Orchestra at Harlem's Apollo Theater as a replacement for Jimmy Rushing, he was spotted by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün, who contracted him to their new recording company, Atlantic Records. Turner recorded a number of successes for them, including the blues standards, "Chains of Love" and "Sweet Sixteen". Many of his vocals are punctuated with shouts to the band members, as for the songs "Boogie Woogie Country Girl" ("That's a good rockin' band!", "Go ahead, man! Ow! That's just what I need!" ) and "Honey Hush" (he repeatedly sings "Hi-yo, Silver!", probably in reference to The Treniers singing the phrase for their Lone Ranger parody "Ride, Red, Ride"). Turner's records scored at the top of the rhythm-and-blues charts; although they were sometimes so risqué that some radio stations would not play them, the songs received much play on jukeboxes and records.

Turner had a great success during 1954 with "Shake, Rattle and Roll", which seriously enhanced his career, turning him into a teenage favorite, and also helped to transform popular music. During the song, Turner yells at his woman to "get outa that bed, wash yo' face an' hands" and comments that she's "wearin' those dresses, the sun comes shinin' through!, I can't believe my eyes, all that mess belongs to you." He sang the number on film for the 1955 theatrical feature Rhythm and Blues Revue.

Although the cover version of the song by Bill Haley & His Comets, with the risqué lyrics partially omitted, was a greater sales success, many listeners sought out Turner's version and were introduced thereby to rhythm and blues. Elvis Presley's version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" combined Turner's lyrics with Haley's arrangement, but was not a successful single.

"The Chicken and the Hawk", "Flip, Flop and Fly", "Hide and Seek", "Morning, Noon and Night", and "Well All Right" were successful recordings from this period. He performed on the television program Showtime at the Apollo and in the movie Shake Rattle & Rock!(1956).

The song "Corrine, Corrina" was another great seller during 1956. In addition to the rock music songs, he released Boss of the Bluesalbum in 1956. "(I’m Gonna) Jump for Joy", his last hit, reached the US R&B record chart on May 26, 1958.

Returning to the blues

After a number of successes in this vein, Turner quit popular music and resumed singing with small jazz combos, recording numerous albums in that style during the 1960s and 1970s. During 1966, Bill Haley helped revive Turner's career by lending the Comets for a series of popular recordings in Mexico. In 1977 he recorded a cover version of Guitar Slim's song, "The Things That I Used to Do".

During the 1960s and 1970s he resumed performing jazz and blues music, performing at many music festivals and recording for Norman Granz's company Pablo Records. He also worked with Axel Zwingenberger. Turner also participated in a 'Battle of the Blues' with Wynonie Harris and T-Bone Walker.

During 1965 he toured in England with trumpeter Buck Clayton and trombonist Vic Dickenson, accompanied by Humphrey Lyttelton and his Band. Part of a studio concert was televised by the BBC and later issued on DVD. A sound recording of a club appearance made during this tour is not thought of sufficient sound quality to justify commercial issue. He also toured Europe with Count Basie and his Orchestra.

He won the Esquire magazine award for male vocalist in 1945, the Melody Maker award for best 'new' vocalist during 1956, and the British Jazz Journal award as top male singer during 1965. In 1977, Turner recorded "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" for Spivey Records, featuring Lloyd Glenn on piano. Turner's career endured from the bar rooms of Kansas City in the 1920s (when at the age of twelve he performed with a pencilled moustache and his father's hat), to European jazz music festivals of the 1980s.

In 1983, only two years before his death, Turner was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. That same year, the album Blues Train was released by Mute Records company; the album had Turner paired with the team Roomful of Blues. Turner received top billing with Count Basie in the Kansas City jazz reunion movie The Last of the Blue Devils (1979) featuring Jay McShann, Jimmy Forrest, and other players from the city.

Death

Big Joe Turner died in Inglewood, California, in November 1985, at the age of 74 of heart failure, having suffered the earlier effects of arthritis, a stroke and diabetes. He was buried at Roosevelt Memorial Park, in Gardena, California.

Big Joe Turner was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Tributes

The New York Times music critic Robert Palmer said: "...his voice, pushing like a Count Basie solo, rich and grainy as a section of saxophones, which dominated the room with the sheer sumptuousness of its sound."

In announcing Turner's death in their December 1985 edition, the British music magazine, NME, described Turner as "the grandfather of rock and roll."

Bob Dylan referenced Turner in the song "High Water (For Charley Patton)", from his 2001 album Love and Theft. Songwriter Dave Alvin wrote a song about an evening he spent with Turner titled "Boss Of The Blues". It was on his 2009 release, Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women. Alvin discussed the song in Issue 59 of The Blasters Newsletter.

Dave Alvin would later collaborate on a second reunion album released in 2015 with his former Blaster's brother Phil Alvin featuring four Big Joe covers. Lost Time covers songs such as "Cherry Red", "Wee Baby Blues" and "Hide and Seek". The brothers met Big Joe Turner in Los Angeles while he was playing the clubs on Central Ave. and living in the Adams district between tours in the 1960s. Phil Alvin even opened for Turner a few times with his first band, Delta Pacific and Turner continued mentoring the Alvin brothers till his death in 1985. Big Joe Turner is pictured on the back cover of Lost Time.

The biographical film The Buddy Holly Story refers to Turner as well as contemporaries Little Richard and Fats Domino as major influences on Buddy Holly, with Holly collecting their vinyls.

Mississippi John Hurt wrote and recorded various versions of a song called "Joe Turner Blues." On a 1963 recording Hurt did for The Library of Congress, he is quoted as saying "best blues I ever heard was Joe Turner" before playing a version of the song.

Most famous recordings

"Roll 'Em Pete" (1938) (available in many versions over the years. Used for the million-dollar first scene in Spike Lee's film, Malcolm X)

"Chains of Love" (1951) * (this was Turner's first million seller. The song was written by Ahmet Ertegun using the pseudonym Nugetre, (words) and Van "Piano Man" Walls (music), and the disc reached the million sales mark by 1954.)

"Honey Hush" (1953) * (Turner's second million-seller; written by Turner, it was credited to Lou Willie Turner.)

"Shake, Rattle and Roll" (1954)

"Flip, Flop and Fly" (1955) * (Has sold a million over the years. The song was written by Charles Calhoun and Turner, but was credited to Lou Willie Turner.)

"Cherry Red" (1956)

"Corrine, Corrina" (1956) * (his fourth million seller; with adaption by J. Mayo Williams, Mitchell Parish and Bo Chatmon in 1932. This disc reached No. 41, and spent 10 weeks in the Billboard record chart)

"Wee Baby Blues" (1956) (a song Turner had been singing since his Kingfish Club days)

"Love Roller Coaster" (1956), with new lyrics to the Kansas City classic, "Morning Glory".

"Midnight Special" (1957)

Tracks marked as * were million selling discs.

Discography

SinglesStudio albums

The Boss of the Blues (1956)

Joe Turner (1958)

Rockin' The Blues (1958)

Big Joe is Here (1959)

Big Joe Rides Again (1960)

Singing The Blues (1967)

Texas Style (1971)

Life Ain't Easy (1974)

The Midnight Special (1976)

Things That I Used to Do (1977)

In the Evening (1977)

Kansas City Here I Come (1984)

Collaborations

The Bosses (1973, with Count Basie)

The Trumpet Kings Meet Joe Turner (1974, with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Clark Terry)

Everyday I Have the Blues (1975, with Pee Wee Crayton and Sonny Stitt)

Kansas City Shout (1980, with Count Basie)

Nobody in Mind (1982, with Milt Jackson and Roy Eldridge)

Blues Train (1983, with Roomful of Blues)

Shake, Rattle & Blues (2011, with Mike Bloomfield)

Compilations

Boogie Woogie (1941), Columbia Records C44

Rock & Roll (1957)

Have No Fear, Joe Turner is Here (1978)

Wikipedia

#Big Joe Turner #05-18 #11-24

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softplacepod · 5 years ago

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Episode 5: Saving What We Love

Show notes and transcript below the cut.

SHOW NOTES: EPISODE 5, “SAVING WHAT WE LOVE”

ACNH: https://www.animal-crossing.com/new-horizons/

“Rewrite the Stars,” The Greatest Showman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO28Z5_Eyls

Rey’s Vision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ib_gszTtig

“You Will Be Found,” Dear Evan Hansen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSfH2AuhXfw

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, bees. It's me, Sara, sending you light and love, and also a bunch of things I've been super into lately that I think might be your jam. Welcome to A Soft Place to Land.

Item the first: welcome to Apple

Or, shared spaces

Look, okay, in this time, it seems like everyone is playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons and I am nothing if not a follower. At first I thought it would be more like Stardew Valley - the grind of the daily tasks, the deep relationships, ever-evolving, with your town’s citizens, the slow circle of seasons. And it’s not not like that, Animal Crossing. You can play it that way.

My spouse lives on my island, which is named Apple. My daughter named it. We have, now, a museum and a tailor’s, and my spouse and I have found a delicate balance of how we want to play. Where he is the finder of every bug and fish and fossil (and now art, because that’s a thing), the careful checklist of hot items and optimal paths through seasonal events, I am…less so. His house is full of items that bring him delight, a room full of bugs and fish he’s saving to get made into special art items. His front yard is a riotous blooming nest of flowers and lawn ornaments.

My house is smaller, and quieter. I keep only certain furniture and items, and sell the rest, or give them to him if I think he’ll like them. I have more floor space, and less decor. My front yard is nearly empty, aside from a birdhouse and a hammock. Instead, I’ve found a soothing rhythm of my daily tasks: clean up the beaches, pick up fallen tree branches, harvest fruit. I catch a few bugs and fish to sell, knowing they’ve all already been donated to our museum. I don’t bother with turnips or hot items. Instead, I’ve become the island’s infrastructure manager. I built a ramp, a couple of bridges. I arrange plots and buildings, reshape where the fruit trees and flower gardens are.

We share the island, but can never interact - we just have the one Switch Lite - and it’s become a sort of game of telephone. We leave each other items or notes, we might drop an extra recipe on the other’s floor, we make sure the other knows that this or that traveling seller is around today. We’re together but not, on the island. It’s nice.

Item the second: is it impossible?

Or, I Want songs

I think I’ve listened to the soundtrack for The Greatest Showman about thirty times now. While I skip some of the songs more often than not, they are all excellently done. “Never Enough” is a heartbreaker, the theme song is boss, “This Is Me” is the obvious stunner. But for whatever reason (there are a lot of them), I’ve found myself drawn again and again to the duet “Rewrite the Stars.” It’s a love duet, and a breakup song, and a celebration, and also it’s an I Want song with a subversion built into the final lines.

Oh, okay, so “I Want” songs, in musicals, are the song where the character sings about how they’re unsatisfied with their current life, and the song bursts from them to describe the life they want. It’s a really common trope in musicals in general, and it’s especially common in 1990s animated musicals and beyond, because in the 60s, a conductor named Lehman Engel ran a series of workshops and taught an entire generation of people how to write musicals, and he thought the “I Want” song was important, so. You could think of, say, “Just Around the Riverbend” from Pocahontas, “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid, or “Touch the Sky” from Brave. For musical theatre songs, “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof, “The Wizard and I” from Wicked, or “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret. There are a lot of them, is the point.

I Want songs, by their nature, describe the state of discontent in which the singer lives, and also - and this is important - the steps they’re going to take to fix that. They’ll keep paddling, they’ll swim to the surface, they’ll run into the wilderness, they’ll seek a marriage with someone worthwhile, they’ll prove their worth, they’ll find a love that doesn’t hurt them. The I Want song is also, by its nature, an I Am Going To song.

And at first, “Rewrite the Stars” sounds like that. It’s two people singing about how they’re obviously falling in love, but external factors and fear are keeping them apart. As the song goes on - in the movie, they’re Zac Efron and Zendaya, separated by race, class, everything - the lovers imagine themselves in the world they describe, where they step bravely out and demand the future they want. But then. But then they are brought back to the ground, literally, by one character pointing out that it’s unrealistic, nearly impossible, and leaving.

It’s a broken I Want song. It’s I Want and This Is How I Could, But I Won’t. It is a hope spot, of sorts, that is then dashed to pieces.

Item the third: voices in the Force

Or, no one is alone, again

There is one moment - there were a couple amidst the parts I hated - in The Rise of Skywalker that keeps coming back to me. I should note, before we begin, that I am on record everywhere as absolutely loving The Last Jedi and seeing no reason for 80% of what was in Rise of Skywalker to have happened.

Long story slightly shorter, there is a moment in the Last Jedi (I’m getting to it, hang on) where all hope seems lost, where the heroes look up in despair and begin to accept their inevitable defeat. And then. And then a sky fills with allies come to help. The galaxy answers the call, and everyone with a ship and a blaster shows up. The fight renews. There are several moments like this in that movie, from Luke’s “no one’s ever really gone” to Rose’s astounding description of how they’ll win - “not fighting what we hate, saving what we love“ to Leia’s “we have everything we need” - moments that never fail to bring me to tears. It’s my favorite story element, always: you are not alone. Your fight is not just you against an insurmountable enemy. You have allies, and they are with you, even if you can’t see them right now.

In Rise of Skywalker, among all the many things about it that I didn’t like, there is a moment where Rey hears all the Jedi of times past speak to her, through her, and tell her: we’re with you. We’re here, too. Get up. You’re not alone. And the power of that moment - we hear Luke, of course, and Obi-Wan, both of his actors contributing. We hear Master Yoda and Mace Windu, in thrilling small moments. We hear characters, women especially, who’ve never been heard in a main film but whose lives in animated and EU content are rich and full and inspiring. We hear Qui-Gon Jinn, who sort of started this whole thing, and Anakin, who in death found a path towards being who he once was (and I have issues with that, don’t get me wrong, but it brought me to tears anyway).

The rest of the movie, in large part, is missed opportunities and boring filler. But that moment, regardless of anything else, stands with my favorites in the series. Moments of connection. Moments where someone who feels alone and abandoned finds a hand reaching out to them, a nudge in the Force that connects all life, a smiling face (or a grumpy one) with welcome on its lips.

Item the final: you will be found

Or, a musical I haven’t even seen

I haven’t seen Dear Evan Hansen, and I won’t, probably, unless it gets released on a streaming service or something. What I have seen, over and over, are people singing one or two of the songs from it. “You Will Be Found,” from what I can gather, features pretty heavily in the plot, and from my skimming of the wikipedia page, the plot is based on a set of lies, so that’s suboptimal, but - and this is important - that in no way lessens the power of this song.

Remember how “Rewrite the Stars” is so full of hope and promise only to dash it with the last lines? This song’s rooting in lies doesn’t matter, because it builds and builds into an overt, loud rejection of the idea that anyone is truly alone, that anyone is beyond help, that anyone is left behind. You reach out a hand and you find another. You seek a spark of hope and it’s there, cupped in someone’s palms, and they’ve been reaching out to you, too, and now you’ve found each other.

We’re feeling alone, many of us, right now. Isolated and quarantined, and things may be starting to open up but we’re far from safe, and it’s all just…it’s a lot right now. And while I can’t promise you safety or happiness, an easier way or a hopeful sunrise, I can promise you that you are not, in fact alone. You are apart, you are secluded, you are many things. But alone, you are not. The galaxy is your ally against the enemies at your door. The onus is not on you to call out for help; we are already here, pouring out what light we can into the darkness, seeking your hand with ours. It feels, so much, like grasping in the dark these days, and sometimes we’re too tired or scared, too worn down or afraid, to keep reaching. I understand. We all do it. We all have days when we can’t see or hear or sense anyone with us, anyone on our side, and we feel abandoned.

For many of us, though, those days aren’t all of them. We have days, too, where we can be the hand in the darkness searching for another. We can be the person singing into space, knowing the song will land in ears that need it. We can shine our lights out into the storm and believe that those who seek it will find it. We won’t have those days all the time, and we won’t always be the ones in search of comfort. The way this works is that we all give what we can and take when we need it. Your days of reaching out and mine don’t have to be the same ones. We push and pull together, we find a balance. We’re not alone. Get to your feet. Look around you. Find another person and pull together on the yoke, and we’ll continue to move forward in space and time.

[music]

Theme music for A Soft Place to Land is “Repose,” by Chase Miller, off his album Burnout. Chase’s music can be found at chasemiller.bandcamp.com. Show notes and episode transcripts are at softplacepod.tumblr.com. You can find me on Twitter @cyranoh_ and you can listen to me jabber on as the foil to my very good friend Anna on our parenting podcast, The Parent Rap, at parentrap.net.

I love you very much. Take care of yourselves. See you soon.

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