ALICIA HALL MORAN, mezzo-soprano, brings diverse influences and passions together in a rich, quintessentially modern artistic brew. Balancing performances in the realms of musical theater (currently understudying Bess/Audra McDonald in The Gershwin's Porgy & Bess directed by Diane Paulus), opera-cabaret (currently the motown project @ The Kitchen, Le Poisson Rouge, Regattabar, etc.), art performance (currently with visual artists such as Joan Jonas, Adam Pendleton, Simone Leigh, Liz Magic Laser), and jazz (most frequently with husband and pianist Jason Moran), while consistently finding outlets for her other love of dance (music for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's award-winning Chapel/Chapter) and writing (in her weekly classical music column, Suite Sounds, for the New York Amsterdam News).
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Marvin Gaye. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Marvin Gaye. Tampilkan semua postingan
Jumat, 30 Desember 2011
Kamis, 17 November 2011
Sabtu, 02 April 2011
The Life and Times of Eddie King, Jr.
The Life and Times of Eddie King, Jr.
by Mark Anthony Neal
Filmmaker Robert Townsend didn’t have to conjure Eddie King, Jr., the lead singer from the fictional soul group The Five Heartbeats, the subjects of Townsend’s 1991 film of the same title. Well known at the time was the role of The Dells, legendary hit-makers with songs like “Oh What a Night” and “Stay (In my Corner),” as the film’s consultants. And while the Dells’ career resembles nothing like the drama that shapes The Five Heartbeats, as veterans of the chitlin’ circuit, they of course had stories to share.
Townsend also could draw on the tradition of the male Soul singer—the proverbial Soul Man—an iconic figure from the 1960s and 1970s that congealed grand narratives of tragedy—shot dead in a motel; shot dead by your father; shot dead in a game of Russian Roulette; killed in an airplane crash; scorched by a pot of boiling grits, paralyzed in a car accident, marrying your dead mentor’s wife months after his death—wedded to even more complicated personal demons—physical abuse of wives and girlfriends; sexual assault of younger female artists; sex with underage girls.
Conventional wisdom is that these tragedies were the price that these men were damned to pay for offering their Godly gifts of voice for sale in the marketplace of the flesh. And immediately we can see Choir Boy, the Five Heartbeats’ falsetto voiced singer, arguing with his preacher dad about the temptations of being out on the road. What was Choir Boy’s story line was likely applicable for the majority of these men who took a leap of faith—literally—and hoped that those gifts from God would translate into some modicum of fame and the ability to live the “good life,” for a generation of black folk, for which such themes were always simply an ideal. The glitz and glamour of those early Motown days were more wishful thinking than anything—just look at the building in Detroit that housed the famed “Hitsville, USA.”
And whatever the tragedies that befell these men, they were not occur in isolation; in the decades before the internet and 24-hour new cycles, and when Jet Magazine was effectively Black America’s social media, the Soul Man was the secular brethren of the equally iconic Race Man—figures who were dually in a noble (and decidedly patriarchal) struggle against good and evil; blackness and whiteness; military aggression and pacifism; sex and love; and “class and crass” to quote another fictional Soul Man, Dream Girls’ Curtis Taylor. These men existed at the same crossroads where legendary Bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil (and damn if his BET founding namesake ain’t been every bit the devil); a subtle reminder that if Huey Newton or Medgar Evers had been able to carry a tune or two over a Motown backbeat or a Stax horn chart, they might have still been in the line of fire.
When Townsend’s The Five Heartbeats was released in March of 1991, audiences might have still been aching over the shocking murder of Marvin Gaye, 6 years and 362 days earlier. In truth, Michael Wright’s Eddie King, Jr., most evoked the troubled and tragic soul that was David Ruffin, lead singer of the most classic Temptations’ lineup from 1964, until his ouster in 1968, though Five Heartbeats cast-mate Leon would better perfect Ruffin’s cavalier brilliance in his portrait of him for the television mini-series The Temptations (1997).
Townsend’s movie was released only months after the first of two box-set collections of Gaye’s musical career was released, a moment that demanded a re-evaluation of Gaye’s career, which could be heard in the generation of R&B singers that emerged in the 1990s including Kenny Lattimore, Maxwell, D’Angelo and perhaps, most dramatically, Robert Sylvester Kelly. As the quintessential Soul Man (save Sam Cooke, who served as the template), it was not difficult to read Gaye onto Eddie King, Jr. or a generation later, Eddie Murphy’s stellar portrait of the fictional James “Thunder” Early in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls.
In many ways the specter of Marvin Gaye continues to haunt contemporary imaginations of Soul Men. Perhaps it’s because Marvin Gaye was a project incomplete—we all long for what Gaye might have had to say about the Hip-hop generation that was just emerging when he took his last breathe and how he might have engaged the music that was produced in its wake. I for one, wonder what Gaye might have had to say to Mr. Kelly—men who could be accused of, but never convicted of the same crime; like I said there are stories to tell.
But what makes Gaye’s music so singular, is that he never seemed to seek redemption—he seemed almost tragically comfortable with the duality of his experiences and his duel lust for God and the flesh—thinking of his description of sex, fucking really, as “something like sanctified.” Indeed figures as diverse as Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Ronald Isley, Charlie Wilson—and yes, even Mr. Kelley, have actively sought, and in some cases found redemption.
Even Eddie King, Jr. found his redemption, singing Rance Allen’s “I Feel Like Going On” in one of the most memorable scenes from The Five Heartbeats. There are no such moments in Gaye’s career—even his most lasting performance, singing the National Anthem at the 1983 All-star game in Los Angeles, was not so much an attempt at redemption, as it was one last dig at the failings of American Democracy—that programmed back-beat a reminder of the Black humanity that lie at the center of a radical Democratic project.
And it is perhaps this lack of resolution that makes Marvin Gaye such a difficult cinematic subject—and perhaps the very reason the idea of Eddie King, Jr.—and all the men who contributed to his mythic creation, will continue to resonate well after The Five Heartbeats are forgotten.
by Mark Anthony Neal
Filmmaker Robert Townsend didn’t have to conjure Eddie King, Jr., the lead singer from the fictional soul group The Five Heartbeats, the subjects of Townsend’s 1991 film of the same title. Well known at the time was the role of The Dells, legendary hit-makers with songs like “Oh What a Night” and “Stay (In my Corner),” as the film’s consultants. And while the Dells’ career resembles nothing like the drama that shapes The Five Heartbeats, as veterans of the chitlin’ circuit, they of course had stories to share.
Townsend also could draw on the tradition of the male Soul singer—the proverbial Soul Man—an iconic figure from the 1960s and 1970s that congealed grand narratives of tragedy—shot dead in a motel; shot dead by your father; shot dead in a game of Russian Roulette; killed in an airplane crash; scorched by a pot of boiling grits, paralyzed in a car accident, marrying your dead mentor’s wife months after his death—wedded to even more complicated personal demons—physical abuse of wives and girlfriends; sexual assault of younger female artists; sex with underage girls.
Conventional wisdom is that these tragedies were the price that these men were damned to pay for offering their Godly gifts of voice for sale in the marketplace of the flesh. And immediately we can see Choir Boy, the Five Heartbeats’ falsetto voiced singer, arguing with his preacher dad about the temptations of being out on the road. What was Choir Boy’s story line was likely applicable for the majority of these men who took a leap of faith—literally—and hoped that those gifts from God would translate into some modicum of fame and the ability to live the “good life,” for a generation of black folk, for which such themes were always simply an ideal. The glitz and glamour of those early Motown days were more wishful thinking than anything—just look at the building in Detroit that housed the famed “Hitsville, USA.”
And whatever the tragedies that befell these men, they were not occur in isolation; in the decades before the internet and 24-hour new cycles, and when Jet Magazine was effectively Black America’s social media, the Soul Man was the secular brethren of the equally iconic Race Man—figures who were dually in a noble (and decidedly patriarchal) struggle against good and evil; blackness and whiteness; military aggression and pacifism; sex and love; and “class and crass” to quote another fictional Soul Man, Dream Girls’ Curtis Taylor. These men existed at the same crossroads where legendary Bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil (and damn if his BET founding namesake ain’t been every bit the devil); a subtle reminder that if Huey Newton or Medgar Evers had been able to carry a tune or two over a Motown backbeat or a Stax horn chart, they might have still been in the line of fire.
When Townsend’s The Five Heartbeats was released in March of 1991, audiences might have still been aching over the shocking murder of Marvin Gaye, 6 years and 362 days earlier. In truth, Michael Wright’s Eddie King, Jr., most evoked the troubled and tragic soul that was David Ruffin, lead singer of the most classic Temptations’ lineup from 1964, until his ouster in 1968, though Five Heartbeats cast-mate Leon would better perfect Ruffin’s cavalier brilliance in his portrait of him for the television mini-series The Temptations (1997).
Townsend’s movie was released only months after the first of two box-set collections of Gaye’s musical career was released, a moment that demanded a re-evaluation of Gaye’s career, which could be heard in the generation of R&B singers that emerged in the 1990s including Kenny Lattimore, Maxwell, D’Angelo and perhaps, most dramatically, Robert Sylvester Kelly. As the quintessential Soul Man (save Sam Cooke, who served as the template), it was not difficult to read Gaye onto Eddie King, Jr. or a generation later, Eddie Murphy’s stellar portrait of the fictional James “Thunder” Early in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls.
In many ways the specter of Marvin Gaye continues to haunt contemporary imaginations of Soul Men. Perhaps it’s because Marvin Gaye was a project incomplete—we all long for what Gaye might have had to say about the Hip-hop generation that was just emerging when he took his last breathe and how he might have engaged the music that was produced in its wake. I for one, wonder what Gaye might have had to say to Mr. Kelly—men who could be accused of, but never convicted of the same crime; like I said there are stories to tell.
But what makes Gaye’s music so singular, is that he never seemed to seek redemption—he seemed almost tragically comfortable with the duality of his experiences and his duel lust for God and the flesh—thinking of his description of sex, fucking really, as “something like sanctified.” Indeed figures as diverse as Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Ronald Isley, Charlie Wilson—and yes, even Mr. Kelley, have actively sought, and in some cases found redemption.
Even Eddie King, Jr. found his redemption, singing Rance Allen’s “I Feel Like Going On” in one of the most memorable scenes from The Five Heartbeats. There are no such moments in Gaye’s career—even his most lasting performance, singing the National Anthem at the 1983 All-star game in Los Angeles, was not so much an attempt at redemption, as it was one last dig at the failings of American Democracy—that programmed back-beat a reminder of the Black humanity that lie at the center of a radical Democratic project.
And it is perhaps this lack of resolution that makes Marvin Gaye such a difficult cinematic subject—and perhaps the very reason the idea of Eddie King, Jr.—and all the men who contributed to his mythic creation, will continue to resonate well after The Five Heartbeats are forgotten.
Senin, 14 Februari 2011
Ashford and Simpson: The Soundtrack to Black Love
Ashford and Simpson: The Soundtrack to Black Love
by Mark Anthony Neal
Some forty-plus years after it’s release, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” may be the most recognizable Soul duet ever recorded. It’s easy to think that the song’s timelessness has every thing to do with the musical bond that Gaye and Terrell shared, in the studio and on stage, but in reality Terrell recorded her vocals for the songs months before Gaye did; The duo were not in the studio together for the recording of the song.
While Gaye and Terrell did find studio magic on tracks like “Ain’t Nothing But the Real Thing,” “You’re All I Need to Get By,” and “Your Precious Love,” the one constant on those recordings was the song-writing and production team of Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson. The duo was in their early twenties when Motown head Berry Gordy entrusted them with some of the label’s marquee acts, begining a more than 40-year career, where their songs, have served as the soundtrack to Black love.
Valerie Simpson was 17 and Nick Ashford 21, when they first met at White Rock Baptist Church in Harlem in 1963. While they were musically drawn to each other—Simpson, a trained pianist composes the music and Ashford provides the lyrics—it would be some time before the two connected romantically; They were more than a decade into their professional partnership, when they finally married in 1974.
Hungry for the kind of Brill Building fame that marked the New York songwriting scene in the 1960s, Ashford and Simpson starting writing songs for the Wand/Scepter label. They recorded their first song, “I’ll Find You” in 1964 as “Valerie and Nick” on the Glover label. Their big break though, would come two years later, from an unlikely source; when Ray Charles recorded the duo’s “Let’s Go Get Stoned”—as in high—it was his first #1 R&B song in four years. The song caught the attention of Gordy, who signed Ashford and Simpson as songwriters.
The initial hits the duo wrote for Gaye and Terrell in 1967, like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Your Precious Love” were actually produced by Johnny Bristol and Harvey Fuqua. It would another year until Gordy allowed Ashford and Simpson take control behind the boards, creating and producing classic tracks like “You’re All I Need to Get By” and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.”
Gordy came to trust Ashford and Simpson’s song writing and production skills so much that he charged them with producing Diana Ross’s first post-Supreme’s solo albums. Ross’s first solo album Diana Ross, produced two of her signature tunes, “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” and her six-minute rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Ashford and Simpson clashed with Gordy over “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” as the label head preferred the song to open with a chorus, as opposed to the song-writers’ vision, where the chorus doesn’t appear until four minutes into the song.
Perhaps at the root of the developing tensions between Ashford and Simpson and Motown, was their desire to be artists in their own right. Nevertheless Simpson recorded two well received, though under promoted, solo albums for Motown, Exposed (1971) and Valarie Simpson (1972). Simpson also appears on Quincy Jones Gula Matari (1970), where she sings lead on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and Smackwater Jack (1971)
When Ashford and Simpson appear on Ells Hazlip’s legendary Soul! in October of 1972, they talk of a duet recording they were working on, covering the songs they had written for others. Sadly that album remains in a can at Universal, and when the duo’s contract was up with Motown in 1973, they signed a deal with Warner Brothers as Ashford and Simpson.
Beginning with I Wanna Be Selfish (1974) , Ashford and Simpson released seven studio albums for Warner Brothers including the brilliant So So Satisfied (1977), which featured the proto-Disco classic “Over and Over” which was covered the same year by Sylvester. Even as Ashford and Simpson were finding moderate success at Warner Brothers, Gordy still reached out to them to produce two albums for The Dynamic Superiors, most well known for the sweet ballad “Shoe Shoe Shine” and their flamboyant and out lead singer, the late Tony Washington.
By the time Ashford and Simpson finally have a major commercial breakthrough with Is It Still Good To You (1978) and the single “It Seems To Hang,” they were in top demand as producers lending their talents to projects by Teddy Pendergrass, Diana Ross’s comeback The Boss (1979) and most famously “I’m Every Woman” which was featured on Chaka Khan’s first solo release in 1978. Earlier in her career, Khan sang lead on Rufus’ cover of Simpson’s “Keep It Comin.” They also contributed the title track to Quincy Jones’ Sounds…And Stuff Like That (1978), where Khan and Simpson share lead vocals.
The decade of the 1970s closed with Ashford and Simpson having their most successful single, “Found a Cure” which married the gospel harmonies that they perfected a in the early 1960s at White Rock Baptist Church with the pulsating rhythms of the Disco. But Ashford and Simpson’s biggest success was still in front of them, after they signed with Capitol Records in 1982.
Their first album for Capital was a concept album called Street Opera, which dealt with the struggles of love and money, perfectly pitched for the period’s economic recession. Despite having written big time hits for many legendary acts, it wasn’t until 1984’s “Solid” that Ashford and Simpson earned their first #1 R&B hit and top-20 pop hit—twenty years after they recorded their first single. The song came back into favor three years ago, when they recorded a new version in support of Barack Obama (“solid as Barack’).
Given the continued influence of those original Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell recordings, it’s hard to imagine Black romance over the last forty-five years without the compositions of Ashford and Simpson playing in the background. As much as Marvin and Tammi set the bar for musical duets, Ashford and Simpson set an even higher bar with regards to song craft and emotion. More amazing than their thirty-five-plus years of marriage is that 45-years of musical partnership—a partnership that earned them induction in the Song Writer’s Hall of Fame in 2002.
Perhaps the best evidence of the value of Ashford and Simpson’s music was their securing of “Pullman Bonds” in 1998, where financier David Pullman guaranteed the duo eight figures drawn from future royalties on their 250-song catalogue. A reminder perhaps that good music is timeless, and for Ashford and Simpson, nothing has been more timeless that Black love and romance.
Senin, 25 Oktober 2010
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