Stardust Melodies

In Stardust Melodies, Will Friedwald takes each of these legendary songs apart and puts it together again, with a staggering wealth of detail and unprecedented understanding.Each chapter gives us an extended history of one song--the circumstances under which it was written and first performed--and then explores its musical and lyric content. Drawing on his vast knowledge of records and the careers of performing artists, Friedwald tells us who was responsible for making these songs famous and discusses in depth the performers who have left their unique marks on them. He writes about variations in performance style, about both classic and obscure versions of the songs, about brilliantly original interpretations and ghastly travesties. And then there's the completely unexpected, like Stan Freberg's politically correct "Elderly Man River.â€This is a book for all lovers of American song to explore, argue with, and savor.From the Hardcover edition.

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Title of ebook: Stardust Melodies
ISBN: 9780307559982
parent-ISBN: 9780375420894
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Published: 06-2005
Released online for download: 06-30-2005
Author of eBook: Friedwald, Will

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Stardust Melodies

Chapter One

Chapter 1

STAR DUST (1927)

music by Hoagy Carmichael
words by Mitchell Parish

Lucy is holding a saxophone. It turns out, as she informs friend Ethel Mertz, she's an amateur musician. Who knew? Lucy then blows into the mouthpiece and produces a few dyspeptic squawks. "It kind of sounds like 'Star Dust,' " says Ethel, diplomatically. "Yeah," Lucy responds, "everything I play sounds like 'Star Dust.' "

Somehow this least expected of testimonials to "Star Dust" resonates particularly loudly. By the mid-1950s, when I Love Lucy was the most popular show in America (and therefore, one assumes, a credible barometer of national taste), "Star Dust" had already been around for twenty-five years and was long established as the most popular of popular songs. Ten years later, it was estimated that Hoagy Carmichael's classic had been recorded at least five hundred different times and its lyric translated into forty languages. (Although over the years, on record labels and in various other places, it has sometimes been spelled as a single word, the correct title is giv ... read full excerpt from: Stardust Melodies ebook

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