Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Sometimes I visit a favourite blog and, David Byrne echoing in my mind, I wonder: how did I get here? Totally Fuzzy is an obvious source of discovering favourite blogs. Links on blogs I like are another pretty reliable source (shared tastes, and all that). Some I might have stumbled upon while searching for a particular song, using a variety of search engines and aggregators. And many I”ve discovered when their owners left a comment. Occasionally I encounter members of my circle of blogging pals ““ people whose blogs I read and who read mine ““ in comments sections of other blogs. Did they get there through my links, or did I find them through theirs, or what other permutations might have led to our congregation at a third blog?

And how did people find my blog? No doubt, Totally Fuzzy, Elbows and good old-fashioned googling are a major source of exposure, as are Retro Music Snob and All Music, All Blogs. Some blogs clearly are so popular and trusted that their readers click on links to mine (Echoes In The Wind, DeaconBlues1103 and Dr Forrest’s Cheese Factory are the most prolific sources of traffic in that respect). And if you”re reading this having read The Guardian’s blogroll last weekend, welcome (also featured was the excellent Ghost of Electricity).

Not so welcome is whoever DMCAs me to Blogger. Another post was zapped yesterday; Blogger again won”t say who complained. As you”ve probably noticed, I”ve not capitulated. Nor have many of the bloggers I particularly enjoy. Anyway, all this to introduce or highlight six more blogs I particularly enjoy. There were more on my shortlist, so if yours has not yet featured, it may well do so in the future.

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Modern Acoustic
Rich K puts out a PDF-based magazine featuring some of my favourite contemporary artists: Kathleen Edwards, Sarah Borges, Josh Ritter, Patty Griffin etc. To go with the mag (which can be downloaded at modernacoustic.com), he runs a blog with copious links to the official sites of the acts he is writing about. Rich is DMCA-safe because he posts no music, but he has taken an interest in the War on Bloggers situation . He wrote to me saying that he is researching an article on the subject. If fellow victims of the terror campaign, or other interested observers, would like to share their views or experiences with Rich, he can be e-mailed: rich [at] modernacoustics [dot] com. One act Modern Acoustics has not featured yet are The Weepies, whose cause I promote with undiluted enthusiasm. From a perfectly legal and band-approved top-notch bootleg:
The Weepies – Gotta To Have You (live).mp3

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The Gentlebear
To illustrate a point I made in the introduction, I found this blog just a few weeks ago and have no idea how I came by it. Whichever route it took, I am delighted to have arrived there. Gentlebear is one of those bloggers who educates and entertains with some fine writing and great song selection. I was particularly impressed with her recent post on The Temptations” song “I Wish It Would Rain” ““ possibly my favourite by the Temps next to “Since I Lost My Baby” ““ featuring a couple of great covers. When I discover a new blog I really like, I trawl through back posts until I have no more energy or time. I read all of the ursine”s blog in one sitting (well, it goes back to only June, but the point stands: this is a very fine blog). The song dedication comes from a 2005 charity compilation, War Child – Help: A Day In The Life. War Child is going to release a new comp in February 2009. Check it out.
Damien Rice – Cross-Eyed Bear.mp3

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The beauty of la musique
A bilingual blog from Canada which takes as its theme appealing or otherwise remarkable graphic artistry from yore. The blog pictures old LP or magazine covers, photos, posters, record labels and so on with a succinct illumination to explain its presence. Sometimes the narrative is very funny. I enjoyed this one for an early “60s record cover depicting a rather predatory sleazedouche doing the twist: “Here’s a stupid and ugly one, for a change. Richard Anthony was a popular French singer of the 1960’s. On the cover art of this single, he seems to have other projects than twisting. Look at the way he’s watching this girl… Help ! Police !”
Status Quo – Pictures Of Matchstick Men.mp3

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Silence Is A Rhythm Too
Here”s a blog that has been running since I was a little boy in Lederhosen (which reminds me of a boy at school in Germany who once pissed into his Lederhosen. As visitors to München”s Oktoberfest may know, not only is piss in Lederhosen eminently conspicuous, but it also produces a nasty aroma). Funk-loving Michael of SIART describes his blog as “an on-going mix-tape”, which seems to me quite an accurate description, though songs are mostly posted individually. Including a bootleg version of the song this blog is named after (though you”ll have to go back a couple of months to find that). Those still on an Obama-high can get an Obama Mix at SIART. It”s all stimulatingly eclectic stuff.
Gene Kelly – I Got Rhythm.mp3

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Jay Brannan: The Morning After
Jay’s debut album, Goddamned, might well turn out to be my most-played of 2008. The long-standing reader will recall that I interviewed Jay back in July. What came across was an appealing personality with some strong opinions and a healthy dose of wit. This is reflected in his apparently very popular blog (featuring a number of video clips from his gigs around Europe), which we can take for granted is written by the artist himself, not an intern at the management company. Jay is certainly building up a strong following around the world, and ““ this is particularly pleasing ““ across the sexual spectrum. As he said in the interview, why should his sexuality matter when he sings about stuff in his life? I imagine that Jay’s blog is named after this, the theme from The Poseidon Adventure:
Maureen McGovern – The Morning After.mp3

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The Music Blog of the Infonistacrat!
I feel a little guilty about not having featured the Infonistacrat before. I have found some great music there, especially from the “90s, which is a bit of a blind spot for me (fatherhood and lack of access to sources of decent music ““ DMCA fans might note that had there been blogs then, I”d have bought plenty more CDs then). The Infonistacrat also calls back into action songs from the “80s, including a lot of half-forgotten material. A great and frequently updated source of alt.rock, punk, indie, new wave and so on. The Infonistacrat will have this song already, probably. It’s that sort of song.
The Ramones – Sheena Is A Punk Rocker.mp3

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Previously featured:
Music For Bloggers Vol. 1: Totally Fuzzy, Not Rock On, Serenity Now (RIP), Stay At Home Indie Pop, The Late Greats, Tsururadio, 200percent, Jefitoblog (RIP), Television Without Pity, Michael’s World
Music For Bloggers Vol. 2: Fullundie, Mr Agreeable, Greatest Films, Peanut’s Playground, Just Good Tunes, Csíkszereda Musings, Mulberry Panda, The Black Hole, Secret Love, Hot Chicks With Douchebags
Music For Bloggers Vol. 3: Girl On A Train, Maybe We Ain’t That Young Anymore, Earbleedingcountry, Spangly Princess, Ill Folks, Deacon Blues, One-Man Publisher, CD Rated
Music For Bloggers Vol. 4: Pop Dose, Todger Talk, Holy Goof (RIP), Echoes In The Wind, Sunset Over Slawit, The Hits Just Keep Coming, The Ghost of Electricity, Guitariotabs
Music For Bloggers Vol. 5: The Quietus, Barely Awake In Frog Pyamas, The Great Vinyl Meltdown, Fusion 45, Inveresk Street Ingrate, The Songs That People Sing
Music For Bloggers Vol. 6: my hmphs, Visions of Wrong Terrence, Don’t Burn The Day Away, Mine For Life, 3 Minutes 49 Seconds
Music For Bloggers Vol. 7: Uncle E’s Musical Nightmare, Jens Lekman, Ain’t Superstitious, AM Then FM, Psd Photoshop Disasters, SIBlingshot on the Bleachers, Dr Forrest’s Cheese Factory, NME & Melody Maker
Music For Bloggers Vol. 8: dustysevens, All Eyes And Ears, Bob Evans, Retro Kino, Retro Music Snob

In the third part of this series we look at the originals of songs made more famous by 70s doo wop revivalists Darts, Bobby Darin, Marianne Faithful, Carpenters and Gene Kelly.

EDIT: With DivShare having deleted three accounts, some of the links originally posted are dead or probably will go dead soon. I have compiled the originals of the featured song, except Daddy Cool, in one file:

The Originals Vol. 3
(The Wrens, Charles Trenet, Dr Hook, New Vaudeville Band, Herman”s Hermits, Cliff Edwards & the Brox Sisters)
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Daddy Cool & Come Back My Love
Every decade seems to enjoy a revival at roughly a 20-year cycle. We are slowly emerging from the 1970s revival, are full-on in the 1980s revival (which was officially launched with The Wedding Singer) and the 1990s revival has already begun ““ though I cannot imagine what there is to be nostalgic about. Essentially, the cultural decision-makers launch a wave of nostalgia to the years of their childhood. And, as this blog proves, I like nostalgia. In the “70s, the big revival was the “50s. It started early, with movies such as The Last Picture Show and climaxed with Grease and the death of Elvis. Bands such as Sha Na Na, Showaddywaddy, Racey and Long Tall Ernie & the Shakers had hits cashing in on the nostalgia boom (as did, at the tail-end of the revival, Shakin” Stevens). All of these were more or less karaoke artists. Not so Darts. They got Rock “˜n” Roll. They took old (usually obscure) numbers and gave them new life. In the case of both of these featured songs, released in 1977, the Darts revamped and improved on the original ““ if one overlooks the sample of Little Richard”s The Girl Can”t Help It in Daddy Cool. It is a shame they are not remembered by much more than the original artists.

The Wrens were a  Bronx doo wop trio that never hit the big time. Come Back My Love, recorded in 1954, should have been a massive hit, but (like their other records) never was. The Rays were a short-lived doo wop band who scored a US hit in 1957 with Silhouettes, of which Daddy Cool was the b-side (the Rays” singer, Guy Darrell re-recorded the b-side as a single in 1961). But it was Daddy Cool which became the inspiration for an Australian “70s group by that name. The Rays file has been borrowed, with permission, from the excellent Whiteray at Echoes In The Wind, who featured it in this post (and do read Whiteray’s amazing story associated with the song). The Wrens” version I had been looking for unsuccessfully for a long time. Within minutes of asking my very generous new friend RH (whom we will have much more reason to be grateful to as this series progresses), he sent it to me.
The Rays – Daddy Cool
Darts – Come Back My Love
Darts – Daddy Cool/The Girl Can’t Help It
Also recorded by: The Cardinals/Daddy Cool, Drummond
Best versions: Darts, in both cases.

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The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Shel Silverstein was something of a Renaissance Man: a poet, childrens” author, cartoonist, screenwriter and composer. In the latter incarnation, Silverstein wrote several hit songs, including A Boy Named Sue and The Ballad of Lucy Jordan. He also wrote a few soundtracks, among them Ned Kelly and the snappily titled Dustin Hoffman film Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? In 1971. Silverstein selected the yet unknown Dr Hook & the Medicine Show to appear on the latter. He proceeded to write the lyrics for many Dr Hook songs, including the notorious Sylvia”s Mother, Cover Of The Rolling Stone and Lucy Jordan. Dr Hook”s 1974 version made negligible impact, but Marianne Faithfull”s cover five years later became a big hit. And quite rightly so: Faithfull”s raspy, slightly desperate voice elicited empathy with the eponymous character”s breakdown, whereas Dr Hook in their perfectly servicable version just told a story. When I posted the Faithfull version previously, I claimed it was about suicide. A reader strongly disagreed. I think the denouement ““ climbing on the roof, taking the man”s hand, driving away in a white car ““ can be read in two ways: suicide or institutionalisation. Faithfull has opted for the latter interpretation, but as far as I know, the writer never let on what he meant.
Dr Hook & the Medicine Show – The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Marianne Faithfull – The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Also recorded by: Lee Hazlewood, Belinda Carlisle, Bobby Bare
Best version: Faithfull”s.

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La Mer/ Beyond The Sea
It is perhaps unfair to speak of Bobby Darin”s Beyond The Sea, released in 1959, as a cover version of the French song La Mer by Charles Trenet. The melodies coincide, as does the nautical theme. From there on, they are really different songs. Trenet”s version, written in 1943 on toilet paper while travelling by train and released in 1946, floats along merrily; Darin”s take initially sails along similarly but then enters a storm of big band brass and brash bluster of vocals. Before Darin recorded the song, with lyrics by Jack Lawrence, it was released by three acts as Beyond The Sea. I have heard none of these versions, but the notion that Benny Goodman”s orchestra was among them would suggest that there is no truth to the idea that it was Darin”s masterstroke to give it the big band treatment. And yet, whatever sound preceded the 1959 recording, Bobby Darin totally appropriated the song, investing in it so much personality that the number can”t be divorced from him. Most covers are based on Darin”s masterpiece, and nobody who has strayed too far from his template has managed to mess it up completely. Not even Robbie Williams.
Also recorded by: Harry James & Orchestra, Benny Goodman & Orchestra, George Wright, Roger Williams (La Mer), Ray Conniff, Lawrence Welk, Helen Shapiro, Johnny Mathis, The Sandpipers, George Benson, Kevin Kline (La Mer), Django Reinhard (La Mer), Ewan McGregor & Cameron Diaz, Bobby Caldwell, Patricia Kaas (La Mer), Wet Wet Wet, Will Young, Robbie Williams, Celtic Women (yikes!), Barry Manilow a.o.
Best version: Bobby Darin should be regarded the King of Headbanging Big Band Swing, with Beyond The Sea as the anthem.

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There”s A Kind Of Hush
A clean-cut song recorded first by a clean-cut band and covered with greater success by an even more clean-cut act. It”s difficult to imagine it now, but at the height of the British Invasion, Herman”s Hermits were briefly challengers to the Beatles” crown, ending 1965 as the best-selling act in the US. Peter Noone and pals weren”t quite as successful in their home country, where they nevertheless scored ten Top10 hits (and a solitary chart-topper) in between 1964 and 1970. Herman”s Hermits” There”s A Kind Of Hush fell smack bang into the middle of that run, becoming a UK #7 and US #4 hit in 1967. The Carpenters” cover nine years later didn”t do as well as that, #12 in the US, but to many people it is the more familiar version. Richard Carpenter does not have high praise for his own arrangement. The original, he has said, was perfect and could not be improved on (and how I wish that more musicians would have such humility), and he didn”t like the synth in his version. On the other hand, it does feature Karen”s voice, for which I am prepared to forgive anything ““ even this song. Edit: After posting this, our friend RH sent me the version by the New Vaudeville Band, whose founder Geoff Stevens co-wrote the song, and released in 1966 on the Winchester Cathedral album. In all my research, I found no reference to that until I read up on Stevens.
Also recorded by: Engelbert Humperdinck, John Davidson, Claude François, Dana Winner, Barry Manilow, Deerhoof
Best version: I don”t think the Herman”s Hermits version is perfect, but it certainly is superior.

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Singin’ In The Rain
Singin” In The Rain, the greatest musical movie of all time, was set in the nascent age of the talkies, giving rise to a couple of incredibly funny scenes involving the efforts to adapt to the new technologies by sound engineers and thespians. The songs in the film were pillaged mostly from Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Bown”s back catalogue of songs written for MGM musicals (Freed”s idea was mainly to cash in on royalties. And why not?). One of these was the title track, performed by Cliff Edwards & the Brox Sisters and originally featured in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, a star-studded affair released not long after the transition from silent movies, and MGM”s only second musical. It therefore was an inspired choice to provide the title and centrepiece for the 1952 musical. And the sequence of Gene Kelly crooning it in the rain ““ filmed while he was running a high fever ““ can never and will never become a cliché. It is film”s equivalent of the Sistine Chapel (and that sequence in A Clockwork Orange the equivalent of pissing on it).
Gene Kelly – Singin’ In The Rain
Also recorded by: Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland; John Serry Sr, Lena Horne, John Martyn, Sammy Davis Jr, Taco, Lou Rawls, Jamie Cullum, Mint Royale a.o.
Best version: The one you can play while jumping in puddles while wearing shiny shoes, a suit and a hat.

More Originals

A new series of (more) old music. In an anorak-y moment, I decided to identify my top 10 favourite albums of all time. Variables such as subjective affection and objective quality aside, the challenge with such a venture is to not forget any contenders. So I sorted through my fairly extensive music collection, including stored away vinyl LPs, taking notes for my shortlist. But lots of old favourites have been lost in one way or another: so I trawled lists of album releases for each year on t’Interweb. And thus was born the entirely unoriginal idea of posting my top 10 favourite albums year-by-year on this blog. My monthly 3GB bandwidth limit would not allow me to post full albums, so we’ll have to make do with one or two songs per album.

Before I get bombarded with complaints about notable omissions: I can rank only those albums I actually know. Many artists are represented in my collection by way of compilations. So I can’t list artists of whom I might have a best of double CD sampler and a few individual tracks I have downloaded. My top 10s are also not representative of the “best” albums of the year. Some are, but others will be included simply because I like them, knowing well that they are not as innovative or influential as others I have listed.

I’ll kick off with the 1950s in one post. I have a fair amount of “50s music, but very few albums. I think my list reflects that. I’ll also deal with the “60s up to the year of my birth in one post. Thereafter, we’ll go year by year.

1. Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers (1956)
This is really Sinatra’s Pet Sounds, the album everybody points to as the definitive Sinatra album (until, in ten years time, the style authorities spot another definitive Sinatra album). I am unsure whether there is such a thing as a “definitive” Sinatra album. If there is, then Songs For Swinging Lovers is as good a pick as any. The concept is obvious, and with the theme being love, Francis is at his most exuberant. Our man did dejected better than most, but Sinatra in love was always great fun. This album also offers much evidence for all that talk about Sinatra’s phrasing. Just listen to You Make Me Feel So Young and imagine how less brilliant singers have interpreted the song.
Frank Sinatra – You Make Me Feel So Young.mp3
Frank Sinatra – Pennies From Heaven.mp3

2. Various – Singin’ In The Rain soundtrack (1952)
If I had to choose one DVD to take with me to exile on a desert island, I might very well pick Singin’ In The Rain. It is the perfect movie (except the ballet sequence is a touch too long. Still, Syd Charisse’s legs….mmmmm). The songs, a hotchpotch of numbers that had long ago appeared elsewhere (and in one case is a shameless rip-off of Cole Porter), range from the sublime “” the title track or Good Morning “” to standard crooning “” You Are My Lucky Star (nonetheless a song I cannot help but croon along to). The orchestral score is very good indeed, but in the company of these exuberant songs, it is somehow intrusive. Stripped down to the show tunes, the album captures the energy of the movie, which is all you can ask from a soundtrack.
Gene Kelly – Singin’ In The Rain.mp3
Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor & Debbie Reynolds – Good Morning.mp3

3. Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (1959)
Ah, I know what you’re thinking: this is Any Major Token Jazz Album. In a way, that would be correct. I used to listen to jazz a lot (mostly fusion of the Grover Washington Jr and Eric Gale variety, though), and now I rarely do. If I feel moved to play some jazz, Kind Of Blue-era Miles Davis is the guy I turn to. The kicker is: when I used to listen to jazz a lot, I rarely listened to Davis (whose Witch’s Brew-era fusion stuff actually turned me off his music), and never to Kind Of Blue, which I didn’t even own. So where to many people Kind Of Blue serves as an introduction to jazz, to me it is a late discovery. And a very happy one. It is the kind of album that you can relax to “” a reading album “” as well as listen to for those brilliant twists and turns. And don’t let anyone sell that revisionist nonsense about Kind Of Blue lacking innovation, a notion that can be bought only if one thinks that innovation must equal excessive wankery. For that, there are plenty of other Davis albums.
Miles Davis – So What.mp3

4. Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook (1956)
This was part of a series of Ella Fitzgerald’s songbook albums. Previously, she had recorded sets of compositions by George Gershwin, later she gave the songbook treatment to such canons as those of Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Rogers & Hart and the Gershwins again. Her tribute to Cole Porter is the most popular, and rightly so. Much of it has to do with the quality of Cole Porter’s songs: the wonderful lyrical and musical wit of songs such as I Get A Kick Out Of You, the sweet romance of Do I Love You, the articulation of a desperate heart on Night And Day”¦ I could listen to Porter all day, even if his songs are being performed by Alanis Morrissette and Robbie Williams, as on the De-Lovely soundtrack. Happily, that is not necessary “” though the soundtrack’s version of Night And Day is quite wonderful “” because Ms Fitzgerald has applied her musical stylings to the Porter catalogue. While none of the versions are necessarily the best available interpretations, Fitzgerald sustains a high measure of quality throughout, a consistency which few other singers working with the same material have matched “” even Sinatra, at his best a great interpreter of Porter’s music, could get patchy.
Ella Fitzgerald – It’s De-Lovely.mp3

5. Frank Sinatra – In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning (1955)
During his Capitol years, Sinatra was apt to produce concept albums. Songs For Swingin’ Lovers was all about being in love, Come Fly With Me (1958) was a collection of travel-related songs, Only The Lonely (1959) was drenched in self-pity. Likewise, In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning paints a mood in line with the album title. Our man is in a reflective mood here, maybe after a solitary night of propping up a bar. Perhaps he is sharing his reflections with the bartender. Life isn’t necessarily bad, but is it really good? This isn’t an outpouring of self-pity, it is introspective. Few of this album’s songs rank among Sinatra’s biggest hits; you’ll find none of them on your average karaoke mix. This is an advantage: as you listen, you don’t wait for the big hits, but buy into the mood of the album, and join Francis in his introspections.
Frank Sinatra – What Is This Thing Called Love.mp3

6. Elvis Presley – Loving You (1957)
By 1957, Elvis was in his pomp. On his third proper album, he was still rockin’ and rollin’, but had also acquired a sense of musical subtlety. His cover of Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” might have been a disaster if approached as a rock ‘n roll song. Elvis didn’t, and it isn’t. On “Teddy Bear” (with the excellent backing vocals by the Jordanaires), Elvis’ pleading sounds sincere, the silliness of the lyrics notwithstanding. In this way, the vocals are presaging the rock-pop of the Beatles rather than organic roots of rock, which find expression in songs such as Party and Got A Lot O’ Livin’ To Do. By now, our boy also had learned how to sing slow songs — not the crooning he’d later subject us to, but the sort of soulful, country-inflected music that let him casually show off his great voice, as on the title track. Elvis would still make a few good albums before going to Germany to do his duty to Uncle Sam, screw underage girls, and return as the Colonel’s cashcow by appearing in a long succession of astonishingly banal movies. Albums like Loving You (itself a soundtrack) remind us of how great Elvis really was before his descend into gimpdom.
Elvis Presley – Loving You.mp3
Elvis Presley – (Let Me Be ) Your Teddy Bear.mp3

7. Miles Davis – Porgy & Bess (1958)
Miles Davis was an objectionable human being. Scarred by his experiences, perhaps, but not admirable in any way but in his artistry. And it was here that Davis (unlike many, I will not refer to the man by his first name as if he was a pseudo-chum; I’d probably not have wanted to be his friend) revealed the beauty inherent in most people, even the obnoxious kind. That beauty rarely shone brighter than on his interpretation of Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, a sensitive, almost tender take, aided by Gil Evans’ wonderful orchestration. Take “Prayer”, a song that passed me by entirely on the soundtrack LP my mother used to own. In the hands of Davis and Evans, it gently lures you into its depth, so much so that it comes as a something of a jolt when the thing ends. The standard number of Porgy & Bess, of course, is Summertime. It’s a song that invites, almost demands vocal stylings “” it’s hardly possible to screw up singing it. All the more credit to Davis and Evans as they deliver a most evocative interpretation without recourse to the human voice.
Miles Davis – Summertime.mp3

8. Various – High Society soundtrack (1956)
The late ’40s and ’50s were the golden age of MGM musicals. High Society, the musical remake of the great Katherine Hepburn vehicle The Philadelphia Story (1940), did not represent the zenith of the genre. Bing Crosby was nothing on Cary Grant, and Sinatra (an otherwise fine actor) no match for the performance by James Stewart in the original. High Society is to be enjoyed purely for Cole Porter’s incredible songs: Crosby’s languid energy of Now You Has Jazz with Louis Armstrong, Crosby crooning with Grace Kelly about True Love, Sinatra and the wonderful Celeste Holm being sardonically envious about obscene wealth. And then there is the set’s absolute high point: Frank & Bing slaying each other with wit in Well Did You Evah, a duel of two iconic crooners in which neither manages to upstage the other even as they raise the stakes, culminating in that wonderful pay-off line by Sinatra: “Don’t dig that kind of crooning, chum”. Swellegant indeed.
Bing Crosby & Frank Sinatra – Well, Did You Evah.mp3

9. Various – An American In Paris (1951)
The film was not as good as Singin’ In The Rain, except for a few stunning setpieces (the charming street scene of I Got Rhythm, the big production of Stairway To Paradise, the lovely painting montage), but it was this Gene Kelly musical that won an Oscar. Arguably, the majesty of Gershwin’s eponymous symphony contributed to what the Academy might have mistaken for sophistication. It is the combination of Gershwin and the memorable set-piece songs — I Got Rhythm is so infectious, one needs self-control not to copy Kelly’s “aeroplane!” move — that create a hugely appealing album. The musical light-heartedness of songs like ‘s Wonderful provide the cream on the strawberries of Gershwin’s score. Or something.
Gene Kelly & Georges Guetary – ‘s Wonderful.mp3

10. Various – Gigi soundtrack (1958)
The last great MGM musical in the old tradition, Gigi came at a time when the genre was slowly dying. The film itself is a cutting satire on gender and class relations, cushioned of course by the obligatory Tinseltown glamour and conventional resolution. The music is key to the masking of the brutal commentary. Charming old Maurice Chevalier croons about little girls (as one could in those days without being considered a paedophile), the old Vichy collaborator and Louis Jourdan discuss the latter’s sense of disillusionment in It’s A Bore (Gaston, it would appear, was a depressive. Did Collette intend that?), and then there is the sweeping, montage-like title track. To me, the highlight of the film and soundtrack is the aging Chevalier and Hermione Gingold nostalgically recounting a date they had many, many years before. Chevalier misremembers with grand charm every detail (“You wore a gown of gold”), and Gingold corrects him (“I was all in blue”) before tenderly “acknowledging” that the old coot’s memory is indeed accurate. Gingold then recalls what a stud muffin the old man used to be, Chevalier responds with self-satisfaction: “Ah yes, I remember it well”, because that he actually has not forgotten. It is at once very funny and very touching. As a film and as a collection of music, Gigi eclipses that other Lerner & Loewe work, My Fair Lady.
Maurice Chevalier & Hermione Gingold – I Remember It Well (Gigi).mp3