#Mort Shuman

[rolloroberson]

“Sweeter than wine

Softer than the summer night

Everything I want, I have

Whenever I held you tight…” - Pomus-Shuman

[themoonsaid]

– doc pomus and mort shuman, 1959

[genevieveetguy]

I can't accept the proximity of my face and my vagina.

A Real Young Girl (Une vraie jeune fille), Catherine Breillat (1976)

[france-cinema]

Mort Shuman et Dominique Labourier dans La Lune d'Omaha téléfilm réalisé par Jean Marbœuf le 26 octobre 1985.

[guessimdumb]

Camille "Lil" Bob - Stop (1969)

Howard Tate recorded the definitive version, but Camille “Lil” Bob’s rendition’s got that NOLA soul bounce.  Written by Jerry Ragovoy and Mort Shuman

[famousdeaths]

Mortimer Shuman was an American singer, pianist and songwriter, best known as co-writer of many 1960s rock and roll hits, including "Viva Las Vegas". He also wr...

Link: Mort Shuman

[filosofablogger]

♫ Save The Last Dance For Me ♫

It’s been over four years since I played this one by The Drifters … time for a redux, yes? This song tells the story of a couple at a dance. He tells his wife that she is free to dance and socialize with other men throughout the evening, but she should not forget that she is going home with him. Inspiration for the song came from a very personal experience. The songwriting team of Doc Pomus and…

[transpondster]

Nilsson, in the released version with band and orchestration, covering Save The Last Dance For Me

[the story goes that Nilsson was drinking way too much by this point and had blown out his voice during the making of the ‘Pussy Cats’ album, and the change in his voice between the demo version and this version is clearly audible, although the singing on this version is still excellent]

[wornoutspines]

The Wheel of Time (S2 Review) | The Show that Required The Ring Of Power's Budget.

After a great finale and a season re-watch I have some thoughts on S2 of The Wheel of Time.

#TheWheelOfTime #TwitterOfTime #SeasonReview #WheelOfTime #TVAdaptation #Review #TVTwitter #PrimeVideo

My journey into The Wheel of Time‘s world really started with the series Rafe Judkins created, I read “The Eye Of The World” before the Season One premiere but the TV series prompted my reading of the first book at the time. Even if Robert Jordan‘s books were sitting on my TBR for some time. The same happened with this season, I read “The Great Hunt” before the Season two premiere. What brought…

[hooked-on-elvis]

"I Met Her Today" (1961-1965)

Recorded on October 15, 1961 at RCA’s Studio B, Nashville · Release date: July 19, 1965 · Album: Elvis for Everyone! (compilation)

MUSICIANS Guitar: Jerry Kennedy, Scotty Moore. Bass: Bob Moore. Drums: Buddy Harman, D.J. Fontana. Piano & Organ: Floyd Cramer. Saxophone & Clarinet: Boots Randolph. Accordion: Gordon Stoker. Vocals: Millie Kirkham, The Jordanaires.

Illustrative pictures · (1) On Sunday afternoon, July 30, 1961, Elvis appeared at Weeki Wachee Springs Park in Florida, on the west coast where he was then filming "Follow That Dream"; (2) Elvis on movie set Frankie and Johnny June 10, 1965.

RECORDING SESSION · BACKSTORY Soundtrack Recordings for Mirisch Company’s "Follow That Dream" July 2, 1961: RCA’s Studio B, Nashville One thing seemed certain to the Colonel: It made sense to go into the studio for another singles-only session. The June 25 session proved that Elvis and his band could focus their attention better when they were all trying to cut a hit single; increasingly, too, scheduling was becoming a problem, and between the two Mirisch pictures there would only be time to arrange a short session. Once Freddy [Bienstock] understood the Colonel’s goal, he knew exactly where to turn for hit material — to his hot new team, Pomus and Shuman. Having gotten three cuts on the last session was more than enough motivation to propel the songwriters into action. Mort Shuman had a simple formula for writing hits — “Chorus, break, and gimmick” — and the two had noticed that Elvis was drawn to first-person songs; in no time, then, they came up with a stranger’s tale, a gimmick, and a Phil Spector – produced demo. The song, “Night Rider,” was just the kind of rocker Freddy was looking for, and he sent it off to Elvis along with two Tepper and Bennett compositions, “Just For Old Time Sake” and “For The Millionth And The Last Time,” as well as two others (“Ecstasy” and “You Never Talked to Me”) and the promise of “a couple of real strong songs in the next few days.”

RECORDING OF "I MET HER TODAY" Studio Sessions for RCA October 15, 1961: RCA’s Studio B, Nashville The “real strong songs” Freddy had mentioned in his note were two brand-new Don Robertson ballads. Elvis’s careful phrasing suggests that he’d done serious preparation on the first, “Anything That’s Part Of You,” but that didn’t stop him from working hard on it, running through six takes as Floyd Cramer worked to duplicate the slip-note fills Robertson had played on the demo. Years later Elvis would tell audiences that “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” was “probably the saddest song I’ve ever heard,” but he never portrayed abandonment more convincingly than on this cut. Among Elvis’s recorded ballads perhaps the only competition comes from some of the other Robertson songs recorded in 1961 and ’62. The second of his contributions, “I Met Her Today,” told a more hopeful story, but it proved harder to get right. After a promising first take Elvis paused to correct some problems with the song’s challenging octave-and-a half leaps, but as soon as he’d mastered that, band mistakes began to multiply. After twenty takes the group’s concentration had worn thin, and they agreed to stop, leaving take eighteen as the master. But the recording lay unused for four years until RCA resurrected it for Elvis For Everyone.

Excerpts: "Elvis Presley, A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions" by Ernst Jorgensen. Foreword by Peter Guralnick (1998)

LYRICS Don Robertson/Hal Blair I told you that some day If you kept on being untrue Somebody else would come along And release me from you You'll be glad to know now Your fickle world Can have its own way For it finally happened I've met her today I used to think I just couldn't live A day without you In spite of the thousand doubts and tears That you put me through All at once I don't care as much for you I'm sorry to say For now there's another I met her today How I treasured each smile, each kiss You gave to me now and then Well, you needn't be kind to me now Oh no, not ever again Just when the last bit of pride in me was gone Someone heard me pray And sent me my angel I met her today I met her today

[kvetchlandia]

Kai Mort Shuman Paul Simon and ARt Garfunkel Performing at the Bitter End, Greeenwich Village, New York City 1964

[julio-viernes]

"Shakin´ All Over" de Johnny Kidd & the Pirates - una de las primeras grandes canciones del rock and roll británico, un auténtico tótem- es básicamente "Little Sister" de Elvis.

¿O es al revés? Miren que escuché veces y más veces las dos, y hasta hoy no me había percatado de su parentesco.

"Shakin´ All Over" es anterior, junio de 1960, "Little Sister" es de agosto de 1961.

¿Tal vez se fijaron en ese éxito autóctono UK los laureados compositores Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman? Es muy posible, lo cierto es que una está al lado de la otra, son canciones hermanas.

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 10th August

We're busy this week, with a fun solo rocker, a return to form for one Elvis Presley, and a piece of novelty fun that's had a surprising amount of staying-power, and that sent me down a research rabbit hole into the history of swimwear. So without further ado...

Because They're Young - Duane Eddy (peaked at Number 2)

Well, it's an instrumental rock track, which generally bodes well. I don't know why instrumental rock stopped charting, beacause it's great fun - I genuinely wish we had more of it in the charts here in 2024! That said, it does suffer a bit from being just so ubiquitous in 1960, with every other week seemingly throwing an instrumental rock hit at us. A lot of them do sound pretty similar to each other - this one, in particular, sounds like literally any solo Shadows hit, with lots of jangling guitar and solid drumming, plus some strings to bring it all together. It's good, but it's pretty standard instrumental fare. So yeah, I'm not surprised that the pendulum swung back towards lyrics, as the 1960s wore on.

This track's a good one, that said, and clearly popular, here in 1960. Duane seems to have gone the "sell it as a "youth thing" and people will buy it" route, at least with the title, and it seems to have worked, with the song shooting up to Number 2 on the UK charts, as well as charting in the US. It's since been adapted as the theme for multiple radio "oldies" shows, and I feel like I also know it from somewhere else, though I can't pin down exactly where. It's memorable, for sure, with a contrast, in particular, between the major-toned backing strings, and the bluesier guitar melody that helps the song to feel distinctive, and stick in the brain. Plus it's pretty short, which can only help when choosing a radio theme, I suspect.

It was also used in a film, also called Because They're Young, which we've already mentioned, since Duane Eddy also wrote another hit for it, Shazam! For whatever reason, Shazam charted first in the UK, despite both presumably being on the film soundtrack. Because They're Young was the bigger hit overall, though - which is fair enough, both songs are decent.

A Mess of Blues - Elvis Presley (2)

And Elvis is back! Well, he's been back for a bit, but it's nice to see him scoring regular hits again after his stint in the army. His managers apparently agreed, and after the successful release of Stuck on You, they set him to work recording a new album, the unimagintively-titled Elvis Is Back! The whole album's full of massive, iconic hits, but the first song from it to really make it big in the UK was this one, a Doc Pomus / Mort Shuman number that ch was only released as a B-side in the US, alongside the considerably more famous Its Now Or Never. Not so in the UK, where it was released as a whole independent A-side, and clearly did pretty well for itself.

I can't be too sad about this, because I really do like this one. It's bluesy - as you'd expect from the title - and pretty cool, full of finger-clicks and a chugging bassline, doubled up on a boogie-woogie-style piano, and all of it a performance from Elvis that's desperate and yearing, singing about how he's got a letter from his baby telling him they can't come home, and detailing the state it's left him in: I swear I'm goin' crazy / Sittin' here all alone / Since you gone I got a mess of the blues. And it gets worse, he hasn't slept, he can't eat, Ever day's just blue Monday / Since you been away. Simple lyrics, but they capture that feeling of waiting around and feeling useless, and of not really knowing what to do with yourself.

And crucially, Elvis isn't just whining - he decides, as the song wears on, that he's going to get himself out of his funk, and makes a plan. I gotta get myself together, he sings, before I lose my mind / I'm gonna catch the next train goin' / And leave my blues behind. He's still a mess of the blues, by the end of the song, but I appreciate that he's trying to shake them. It's sound advice, you know? Sometimes you just need to get out the house, even if you're still feeling rubbish. A change of scenery can do the soul good, and sometimes you just need to jump on a train somewhere. As an enjoyer of both trains and random adventures, I approve wholeheartedly.

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - Brian Hyland (8)

Well, this is a song that's stuck around. If anything, I'd compare it to something like Witch Doctor from last year, as an example of a novelty song that's stuck in the popular imagination, enough to have attracted a few popular covers. It even featured in a Doctor Who episode, recently - or that's where I last came across it, anyway. So yeah. A success, especially as novelty songs go. You almost certainly know this song. It's the one about a girl wearing an itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie yellow polka-dot bikini, her first time wearing one. Self-conscious, she refuses to come out of the changing-room for a while, then sits on the beach bundled in a blanket, and finally, when tempted to go into the water, she's afraid to come out, with the song ending on Brian's wry observation that the poor little girls' turning blue.

It's genuinely quite funny, unlike a lot of novelty songs. I think partly that's because it's a relatable gag, still. I've certainly been there, picking something a bit bolder than my usual fashion choice, and then regretting it, and spending an evening or a day trying not to draw attention to it. Heck, I think I've even done it with swimwear, so you know. Not too farfetched. Even less so in the 1960s, when bikinis were still relatively new, as a phenomenon - invented by the Frenchman Louis Réard in 1946, and named for the Bikini Atoll, where the first public nuclear bomb test had happened only four days previously, they didn't really get popular for a decade or so, and were still banned in various places. So yeah, bikinis would have shocked people, for sure. And an itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie yellow polka-dot bikini? A definite bold choice.

Incidentally, the song itself's credited with helping make bikinis a more mainstream phenomenon. Sure, they'd been pioneered by glamorous European celebrities, including none other than Brigitte Bardot in 1957, who wore one in the film And God Created Woman, but it was this song, combined with the burgeoning surf culture, that's credited with a sudden boom in the acceptability and popularity of bikinis in the US, where they'd previously been a bit more taboo. Four years later, you get the first bikini on the cover of Sports Illustrated - a sign of how far things had come!

So yes, bikinis themselves are part of why the song works, for me. But also, it's just a good, well-made song. It's got catchy lyrics, some strummy guitar, a silly hook with the one-two-three-four, tell the people what she wore vocals, a chorus that repeats over and over, and of course, the inherent fun of the "itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie yellow polka-dot bikini" line, which leans hard into reduplication, and the contrast between different vowels, all of which make it an eminently satisfying line to sing along with. You can hardly help but want to join in, particularly when it's repeated so frequently throughout - all of which goes some way to explain the staying-power of a song that could otherwise be a bit of throwaway fluff. I'm not arguing for this song as an underappreciated classic, or anything. But as novelty songs go, it's a good one.

I'm in an interesting position, here, because I think Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini was the most interesting song to think and talk about, here. It sent me on a really fun deep-dive into the history of the bikini, and it made me think about what makes novelty songs good. On the other hand, the title I give at the end is for my favourite song. And IBTWYPDB did begin to wear on the nerves, a bit. So while I enjoyed it, the prize has to go to the King, back in true, triumphant fashion.

Favourite song of the bunch: A Mess of Blues

[angelariasdominguez]

§ 3.637. La muchacha del sendero (Nicolas Gessner, 1976)

VIERNES, 27 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2024

Inquietante y perturbadora historia de terror psicológico protagonizada por una infantil Jodie Foster en el que es uno de sus primeros grandes papeles como protagonista, justo ante de "Taxi Driver" y justo después de "Alicia ya no vive aquí", ambas de Martin Scorsese. La verdad es que la chica, probablemente una niña adolescente, no más de 14 ó 16 años (aparentando 13 en esta ficción) soporta perfectamente la película. Tiene empuje, garbo, determinación y se la ve muy suelta.

Los otros dos protagonistas son Alexis Smith, que tiene un par de escenas y desaparece en el minuto treinta,  Martin Sheen, que seguro que no le agradó el papel que hizo porque es insulso y poco definido, Mort Shuman,  un compositor y cantante de éxito que hizo muy pocas películas (y supongo que siempre en papeles secundarios) y Scott Jacoby.

El propósito de la obra es perturbador, pero el desarrollo no va ascendiendo en la escalera de la tensión como debe. Desde le principio sabes de qué va la cosa y el interés del juego consiste en averiguar cómo ha ocurrido, porque el qué ha ocurrido ya lo sabes.

Los papeles infantiles no me suelen gustar, las películas protagonizadas por niños me cansan, me suelen aburrir, pierdo el interés de las tramas, sobre todo porque siempre tengo una especie de sospecha de que son explotados, maltratados, abusados. No es muy natural que en la vida real los niños adquieren tanto protagonismo. 

La cinta está bien, sin más.Interesante, pero un poco larga.

[guessimdumb]

Dion DiMucci - Troubled Mind (1963)

In 1963, Dion moved from Laurie records to Colombia records, and began pursuing a more bluesy sound. Here's a very cool Doc Pomus-Mort Shuman composition that he recorded.