Monica Lewis

b. 5 May 1922, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Lewis was born into a musical family, a career in showbusiness was virtually inevitable. Her father, Leon Lewis, was a symphonic composer and pianist, her mother, Jessica, sang with the Chicago Opera Company and became one of the country’s leading vocal coaches. Her sister, Barbara Lewis Golub, became an accomplished concert pianist; while her brother, Marlo Lewis, was the producer of the original Ed Sullivan television show, The Toast Of The Town. Lewis first studied voice with her mother and left college at 17 to begin a career as a vocalist on radio. While still in her teens, she had her own programme, Monica Makes Music, on WMCA in New York. This early radio success led to a prestigious engagement at the Stork Club, and appearances with Benny Goodman’s orchestra. After appearing on radio with Frank Sinatra, Dick Powell, and Morton Gould, Lewis had recording sessions with Signature Records and Decca Records. She had a number of successes, including ‘A Tree In A Meadow’ and ‘Autumn Leaves’.

Alongside her appearances on radio and records, for more than a decade, Lewis provided the voice for the ‘Chiquita Banana’ character in cartoons and commercials. She had appeared on the first of Sullivan’s television shows, in 1948, and then came to the attention of Hollywood. She was signed by MGM where she was groomed as a dramatic actress and the studio’s answer to popular star Lana Turner. Among the movies Lewis made was The Strip (1951), which starred Mickey Rooney as a jazz drummer with the featured band of Louis Armstrong. She continued to play roles in films, and also provided an on and off screen singing voice, including Everything I Have Is Yours (1952), in which she sang the title song and danced with star Gower Champion. She also appeared frequently on television, working with Bob Hope, Milton Berle, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, sharing top-billing with the latter pair for a New York club engagement. She also toured with USO shows, appearing in Korea with Danny Kaye.

Although at the height of her popularity, and headlining at leading hotels and clubs in Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere, Lewis, now married to movie executive Jennings Lang, retired. However, the call was too strong for a permanent absence and in the 60s, 70s and 80s she appeared in numerous television shows, including Wagon Train, Peter Gunn, Ironside, Quincy, Falcon Crest and Remington Steele. She also made occasional movie appearances, including Charley Varrick (1973), Airport ’77 (1977) and The Sting II (1983). In the mid- and late 80s, Lewis returned to the recording studio, releasing the highly praised Never Let Me Go. The success of this album resulted in the re-release of her 50s recordings.

A fluent interpreter of standards and the great show tunes, Lewis’ singing voice is clear and true. Her warm sound, allied as it is to a subtle vibrato and underlying power, allows her to bring a distinctive touch to a wide range of material. Her son Mike Lang is a noted studio musician and composer who has played piano with several leading jazz artists. He accompanied Lewis on some of her later recordings, which he also produced.

RISING ROOTS PHENOM ‘SAMANTHA FISH’ UNVEILS “KILL OR BE KIND”

Rounder Records Debut Slated for Worldwide Release on August 30, 2019

Single "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" Available Now

UK & European began in Newcastle on Tuesday May 7th

Listen on Demand to Samantha’s Live Performance on BBC Radio 2's

The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews on May 6

on BBC iPlayer

Genre-bending guitarist, singer, and songwriter Samantha Fish will release Kill Or Be Kind on August 30, 2019. A two-song single from the album featuring "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" was released today.

"Watch It Die" reveals Fish's prodigious gifts as a commanding vocalist and her sublime guitar technique, while the smouldering "Love Letters," is a fiery lament about love gone wrong that slowly builds to a searing bridge and solo.

Listen to, and download the new single from rounder.lnk.to/SFWatchLetters

Fish's incendiary live performances have been mesmerizing audiences all over the globe. Now, with Kill Or Be Kind, Fish is poised for a major breakthrough. The edgy roots music album was recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis and produced by three-time Grammy winner Scott Billington and mixed by two-time Grammy winner Steve Reynolds. Boasting 11 original songs ranging from the electric cigar box stomp of "Bulletproof" to the sweet Memphis R&B of "Trying Not To Fall in Love With You," the album is sure to establish Fish as a potent force in roots music.

The Kansas City-born-and-bred musician flirts with tradition but pushes genre boundaries to create a sound that's distinctly her own: "She Don't Live Here Anymore," co-written by Parker Millsap, features a Memphis soul underpinning with a sustained vibrato guitar sound that edges toward country. "Love Your Lies" persuasively straddles punk, rockabilly, and soul; while "You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)" is a classic blues rocker, thick with layered guitars and a cigar box solo. She shows off her range with the sweetly wistful "Dream Girl" and the cathartic, blues-saturated "Farewell My Fair Weather."

On May 6, Samantha kicked off her tour of UK and Europe with a live performance and interview on BBC Radio 2's highly-rated and influential The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews.

If you missed it, you can now listen to it on demand via BBC iPlayer via this link - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b25mg0/episodes/player

In June, she will start a tour of the US that includes stops at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, San Francisco's Fillmore, and the Troubadour in West Hollywood. More dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Love Letters

Samantha Fish / Jim McCormick

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Rhodes and Hammond B3 organ

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Watch It Die

Samantha Fish / Patrick Sweany

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Hammond B3 organ

Andriu Yanovski, Moog synthesizer

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph and Kayla Jasmine, backing vocals

UK And European Tour Dates:

Tickets – www.samanthafish.com

5/07/19 Sage 2 Gateshead

5/08/19 Milton Keynes The Stables

5/09/19 Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms (Sold Out)

5/10/19 Glasgow Òran Mór (Sold Out)

5/11/19 Birmingham O2 Academy Birmingham

5/12/19 Bristol Thekla (Sold Out)

5/13/19 Cambridge Cambridge Junction

5/14/19 Manchester Band on the Wall (Sold Out)

5/16/19 London The Garage

5/17/19 Brighton The Haunt

5/18/19 Oxford O2 Academy

5/19/19 Southampton The Brook

5/21/19 Paris Le Flow

5/22/19 Brussels AB Club

5/23/19 Amsterdam Q Factory

5/24/19 Hamburg Fabrik

5/25/19 Dortmund Piano

5/26/19 Nurnberg Hirsch

5/27/19 Munich Strom

5/28/19 Zurich Kaufleutenv

5/30/19 Milan Legend Club

I'm looking after the Tour Management for this run of dates, so if anyone is thinking of coming to any of these shows, come and say hello at the Merch Table after the show.

It's funny how an old photograph and a song can take you back in time:"//,/Look at this' ,pho'to'graph'//,/Eve'ry'time', I' do' ,it makes me' laugh//,/"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3rXdeOvhNE&feature=relmfu

We did three Linda Ronstadt tunes for a high school variety show, put on by high school students only.I'm thinking the year was 1978,it was with some of my rudiments of music classmates.The guitarist on the left,and the guy playing pedal steel are brothers,the drummer and bass player are also brothers.Our song list{3}it's a good thing we did not have to learn a full set,because we would still be working on that today.

1]When will I be loved:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmE7tTzJkbU

2]Tumblin Dice:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIpxLot2BNU

3]Blue Bayou:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceYjg1dy-h0

I was thinking I wanted to be a Rock Star like this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E LOL

Zakk Wylde-Sold my soul solo:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsih9nUpq2U&NR=1

Zakk Wylde-farewell ballad solo:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYMupc564zE

Oh,well,win some loose some,she was good on vocals.and he was good on the pedal steel,and we all did the songs justice,but my mind was on Rock and roll,Hot Rods,and of course girls.lol This old photo,and the following video link took me back to the era,and interests I grew up with,sure was fun times.

Jeff Beck guitar,engine sounds,Hot Rods in action,and girls.Perfect !!! :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSOkeVfwwc8&NR=1

The Telecaster has a thin,trebly,twangy "Honky-Tonk",common to country music type of sound{that's why most are played without the rear bridge cover for palm mute}so it works very well for a fast pickin clean sound.Add some gain/overdrive,sustain,and equalize off the peaks, and that makes it sound more in the direction of a Les Paul,and works with Rock/Heavy Rock style music.

Here is Johnny Hiland Chicken Pickin,and doing some fret taps on the Tele with Sammy Hagar,making it sound great on a rock tune.:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qia0T2M1LD0

Guitar Lessons with Zakk Wylde:

www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-learn-pentatonic-scales-vibrat...

I have tried to play the "Guitar Hero" video game.My conclusion:Throw the plastic guitar and video game in the trash !!!!! Spend the money on a real guitar,get a understanding of the lessons in this video,use the time you would have spent playing the video game,practicing on the real guitar,and be the guitar hero yourself !!!!!! That is what the people they are trying to imitate did !!!!

RISING ROOTS PHENOM ‘SAMANTHA FISH’ UNVEILS “KILL OR BE KIND”

Rounder Records Debut Slated for Worldwide Release on August 30, 2019

Single "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" Available Now

UK & European began in Newcastle on Tuesday May 7th

Listen on Demand to Samantha’s Live Performance on BBC Radio 2's

The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews on May 6

on BBC iPlayer

Genre-bending guitarist, singer, and songwriter Samantha Fish will release Kill Or Be Kind on August 30, 2019. A two-song single from the album featuring "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" was released today.

"Watch It Die" reveals Fish's prodigious gifts as a commanding vocalist and her sublime guitar technique, while the smouldering "Love Letters," is a fiery lament about love gone wrong that slowly builds to a searing bridge and solo.

Listen to, and download the new single from rounder.lnk.to/SFWatchLetters

Fish's incendiary live performances have been mesmerizing audiences all over the globe. Now, with Kill Or Be Kind, Fish is poised for a major breakthrough. The edgy roots music album was recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis and produced by three-time Grammy winner Scott Billington and mixed by two-time Grammy winner Steve Reynolds. Boasting 11 original songs ranging from the electric cigar box stomp of "Bulletproof" to the sweet Memphis R&B of "Trying Not To Fall in Love With You," the album is sure to establish Fish as a potent force in roots music.

The Kansas City-born-and-bred musician flirts with tradition but pushes genre boundaries to create a sound that's distinctly her own: "She Don't Live Here Anymore," co-written by Parker Millsap, features a Memphis soul underpinning with a sustained vibrato guitar sound that edges toward country. "Love Your Lies" persuasively straddles punk, rockabilly, and soul; while "You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)" is a classic blues rocker, thick with layered guitars and a cigar box solo. She shows off her range with the sweetly wistful "Dream Girl" and the cathartic, blues-saturated "Farewell My Fair Weather."

On May 6, Samantha kicked off her tour of UK and Europe with a live performance and interview on BBC Radio 2's highly-rated and influential The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews.

If you missed it, you can now listen to it on demand via BBC iPlayer via this link - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b25mg0/episodes/player

In June, she will start a tour of the US that includes stops at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, San Francisco's Fillmore, and the Troubadour in West Hollywood. More dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Love Letters

Samantha Fish / Jim McCormick

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Rhodes and Hammond B3 organ

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Watch It Die

Samantha Fish / Patrick Sweany

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Hammond B3 organ

Andriu Yanovski, Moog synthesizer

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph and Kayla Jasmine, backing vocals

UK And European Tour Dates:

Tickets – www.samanthafish.com

5/07/19 Sage 2 Gateshead

5/08/19 Milton Keynes The Stables

5/09/19 Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms (Sold Out)

5/10/19 Glasgow Òran Mór (Sold Out)

5/11/19 Birmingham O2 Academy Birmingham

5/12/19 Bristol Thekla (Sold Out)

5/13/19 Cambridge Cambridge Junction

5/14/19 Manchester Band on the Wall (Sold Out)

5/16/19 London The Garage

5/17/19 Brighton The Haunt

5/18/19 Oxford O2 Academy

5/19/19 Southampton The Brook

5/21/19 Paris Le Flow

5/22/19 Brussels AB Club

5/23/19 Amsterdam Q Factory

5/24/19 Hamburg Fabrik

5/25/19 Dortmund Piano

5/26/19 Nurnberg Hirsch

5/27/19 Munich Strom

5/28/19 Zurich Kaufleutenv

5/30/19 Milan Legend Club

I'm looking after the Tour Management for this run of dates, so if anyone is thinking of coming to any of these shows, come and say hello at the Merch Table after the show.

2016 is shaping up to be the year we say good bye to an amazing amount of talent. Lonnie Mack, as described on the cover of this Alligator Records album "The first and perhaps the last of the modern American roadhouse rockers. Mack on the loose...all fat rhythm chords, rumbling like a semi; vibrato rich solos building to screaming single note climaxes, and gorgeous, growly vocals that are a wonder to behold." I saw him many years ago at Buddy Guys Legends bar in Chicago, on my birthday, and it was a present I will never forget. Lonnie and his good friend Stevie Ray Vaughn are surely jamming and smiling. King of the Gibson Flying V

www.yahoo.com/news/guitarist-singer-lonnie-mack-dies-age-...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkBqTWBIkKw

Bernard Stanley "Acker" Bilk MBE (born 28 January 1929) is an English clarinettist. He is known for his trademark goatee, bowler hat, striped waistcoat and his breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register clarinet style.

Bilk earned the nickname Acker from the Somerset slang for 'friend' or 'mate'. His parents tried to teach him the piano, but as a boy, Bilk found it restricted his love of outdoor activities including football. He lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which Bilk has claimed to have affected his eventual clarinet style.[2]

On leaving school he joined the workforce of W.D. & H.O. Wills's cigarette factory in Bristol, staying there for three years putting tobacco in the cooling room, and then pushing tobacco through a blower.

He then undertook his three years National Service with the Royal Engineers in the Suez Canal Zone. Bilk learnt the clarinet there after his sapper friend John A. Britten gave him one that he had bought at a bazaar and had no use for. The clarinet had no reed and Britten fashioned a makeshift reed for the instrument out of some scrap wood.[4] He then borrowed a better instrument from the Army, which he kept with him on demob.

On return home, he joined his uncle's blacksmith business, and qualified in the trade.

During the evenings he would play with friends on the Bristol jazz circuit. In 1951 he moved to London to play with Ken Colyer's band. But hating London, he returned west and formed his own band in Pensford called the Chew Valley Jazzmen, which was renamed the Bristol Paramount Jazz Band when they moved to London in 1951. Their agent then got them a six-month gig in Dusseldorf, Germany, playing a beer bar seven hours a night, seven nights a week where Bilk and the band developed their distinctive style and apperance, complete with stripped-waistcoats and Bowler Hats.

On return and now based in Plaistow, London, the band played the London jazz club scene.[2] It was from here that Bilk became part of the boom in traditional jazz that swept the United Kingdom in the late 1950s. In 1960 their single "Summer Set," a pun on their home county co-written by Bilk and pianist Dave Collett, reached number five in the British charts, and began a run of eleven top 50 hit singles.

Bilk was not an international star until an experiment with a string ensemble and a composition of his own as its keynote piece made him one in 1962. Upon the birth of his daughter, he composed and dedicated a melody entitled "Jenny" (her name). He was approached by a British television series for permission to use that melody, but to change the title to "Stranger on the Shore". He went on to record it as the title track of a new album in which his signature deep, quivering clarinet was backed by the Leon Young String Chorale. The single was not only a big hit in the United Kingdom, where it stayed on the charts for 55 weeks, gaining a second wind after Bilk was the subject of the TV show This Is Your Life, but also shot to the top of the American charts at a time when the American pop charts and radio playlists were open to just about anything in just about any style. As a result, Bilk was the second British artist to have a single in the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. (Vera Lynn was the first, with "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" in 1952). "Stranger on the Shore" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The album was also highlighted by a striking interpretation of Bunny Berigan's legendary hit "I Can't Get Started." At one point, at the height of his career, Bilk's public relations workers were known as the "Bilk Marketing Board", a play on the then Milk Marketing Board.

In January 1963, the British music magazine, NME reported that the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain had taken place at Alexandra Palace. The event included George Melly, Diz Disley, Alex Welsh, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Bilk. Bilk recorded a series of albums in England that were also released successfully in the United States (on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco), including a memorable collaboration (Together) with Danish jazz pianist-composer Bent Fabric ("The Alley Cat"). But his success tapered off when British rock and roll made its big international explosion beginning in 1964, and Bilk shifted direction to the cabaret circuit. He finally had another chart success in 1976, with "Aria," which went to number five in the United Kingdom. In May 1977, Bilk & His Paramount Jazz Band provided the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest. His last chart appearance was in 1978 when the TV promoted album released on Pye/Warwick "Evergreen" reached 17 in a 14 week album chart run. In the early 1980s, Bilk and his signature hit were newly familiar, thanks to "Stranger on the Shore" being used in the soundtrack to Sweet Dreams, the film biography of country music legend Patsy Cline. The tune "Aria" featured as a central musical motif in the 2012 Polish film, Mój rower. Most of his classic albums with the Paramount Jazz Band have been reissued and are available on the UK based Lake Records label.

Bilk has been described as "Great Master of the Clarinet".His clarinet sound and style was at least as singular as had been those of American jazzmen such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Russell Procope, and "Stranger on the Shore" – which he was once quoted as calling "my old-age pension" – remains a beloved standard of jazz and popular music alike.

Acker Bilk continues to tour with his Paramount Jazz Band, as well as performing concerts with his two contemporaries, Chris Barber and Kenny Ball (both of whom were born in 1930) as the 3B's.

One of his recordings is with the Chris Barber band, sharing the clarinet spot with the band's regular reedsmen, John Crocker and Ian Wheeler. He made a CD with another legend of British Jazz Wally Fawkes for the Lake Records label in 2002. He has appeared on two recent albums by Van Morrison, Down the Road and What's Wrong With This Picture?

Tréminis l'église - 1350 m d'altitude - Massif de l'Obiou (Trièves)

Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

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#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

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Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

When my friend Mark acquired this Fender Pro Reverb guitar amplifier, it had a number of serious problems, but it looked good and seemed to be a promising project.

"Silverface" Fender amps have a mixed reputation, as do models such as this one which use an ultra-linear output circuit to boost its power to an advertised 70 watts.

Most of the components in this amp had 1979 date codes, but a few had early 1980 codes. My best guess is that the amp was first sold sometime in 1980.

NOTE: All trademarks are the property of their owners.

A statue of the Bee Gees by sculptor Andy Edwards was unveiled in Douglas, Isle of Man, in 2021. It is located on Loch Promenade between Marine Gardens 1 and 2 and opposite Regent Street. The 7-foot (2.1 m) bronze sculptures depict Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, and the artist was inspired by the group's music video for "Stayin' Alive". The £170,000 project was commissioned in 2019.

The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb born on the Isle of Man to English parents. The trio were especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies: Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The group wrote all their own original material, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists, and are regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop-music history. They have been referred to in the media as The Disco Kings, Britain's First Family of Harmony, and The Kings of Dance Music.

Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

American Arcade card.

American artist Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) ranked with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday in the top echelon of female jazz singers. She is known for her expressive voice, unique vibrato and large vocal range. Nicknamed 'Sassy' and 'The Divine One', Vaughan was a two-time Grammy Award winner and won an Emmy in 1981 for a tribute to George Gershwin.

Sarah Lois Vaughan was born in 1924 in Newark, New Jersey. Her parents, Asbury Vaughan, a carpenter, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress, were also musicians. She began studying music when she was seven, taking eight years of piano lessons and two years of organ. As a child, she sang in the choir at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Newark and played piano and organ in high school productions at Arts High School. As her adventures as a performer overtook her academic pursuits, she dropped out of high school during her junior year to concentrate more fully on her music. At 18, she entered an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in New York's Harlem area, singing 'Body and Soul' and won the $10 prize and a week's engagement at the Apollo. She caught the attention of bandleader and pianist Earl Hines, with whose big band Sarah Vaughan became a singer. From 1943 to 1945, she sang together with Hines' singer at the time, Billy Eckstine. In 1945, Vaughan went solo. Well-known songs from that period include 'Lover Man' (1945), the Jazz standard 'Tenderly' (1947) and 'Nature Boy' (1947). Her recording of 'It's Magic' from the Doris Day film Romance on the High Seas (Michael Curtiz, 1948) became a hit in the charts in early 1948. She signed with Columbia, and her chart successes continued with 'Black Coffee' in the summer of 1949. Until 1953, Columbia steered her almost exclusively to commercial pop ballads, like 'That Lucky Old Sun', 'Thinking of You' (with pianist Bud Powell), and 'I Cried for You'. Vaughan sang to large crowds in clubs around the country during the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the summer of 1949, she made her first appearance with a symphony orchestra in a benefit for the Philadelphia Orchestra entitled '100 Men and a Girl.'

Sarah Vaughan performed her songs in several films, including Disc Jockey (Will Jason, 1951) starring Tom Drake, the crime film Murder, Inc. (Burt Balaban, Stuart Rosenberg, 1960) with Stuart Whitman and May Britt, and the German production Schlager-Raketen / Hits Rocket (Erik Ode, 1960). Scott Yanow at AllMusic: "She often gave the impression that with her wide range, perfectly controlled vibrato, and wide expressive abilities, she could do anything she wanted with her voice." In 1953, Vaughan signed a contract with Mercury in which she would record commercial material for Mercury and jazz-oriented material for its subsidiary, EmArcy. She was paired with producer Bob Shad, and their working relationship yielded commercial and artistic success. She remained with Mercury through 1959. After recording for Roulette from 1960 to 1963, she returned to Mercury from 1964 to 1967. Her hits at Mercury included 'Make Yourself Comfortable', 'How Important Can It Be' (with Count Basie), 'Whatever Lola Wants' and 'The Banana Boat Song'. Her commercial success peaked with 'Broken Hearted Melody' (1959), a song she considered 'corny' but became her first gold record. Vaughan was reunited with Billy Eckstine for a series of duet recordings in 1957 that yielded the hit 'Passing Strangers'. In the latter half of the 1950s, she followed a schedule of almost non-stop touring. She was featured at the first Newport Jazz Festival in the summer of 1954 and starred in subsequent editions of that festival at Newport and New York City for the remainder of her life. In the fall of 1954, she performed at Carnegie Hall with the Count Basie Orchestra on a bill that also included Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and the Modern Jazz Quartet. She also toured Europe several times. Vaughan continued to release records and perform until the early 1980s, working with luminaries such as Miles Davis and Quincy Jones. In 1947, she married her manager, trumpeter George Treadwell. Her later husbands were pro football player Clyde B. Atkins (1958-1963) and trumpeter Waymon Reed (1978-1981). All her marriages ended in divorce. She and Clyde B. Atkins adopted a daughter in 1961, whom they named Deborah Lois, now actress Paris Vaughan. Sarah Vaughan received many awards, including an Emmy in 1981 for a tribute to George Gershwin. She won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. Sarah Vaughan died in 1990, in Hidden Hills, Los Angeles, of lung cancer. Following her death, she was interred at Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

Sources: Mike McKinley (IMDb), Scott Yanow (AllMusic), Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

RISING ROOTS PHENOM ‘SAMANTHA FISH’ UNVEILS “KILL OR BE KIND”

Rounder Records Debut Slated for Worldwide Release on August 30, 2019

Single "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" Available Now

UK & European began in Newcastle on Tuesday May 7th

Listen on Demand to Samantha’s Live Performance on BBC Radio 2's

The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews on May 6

on BBC iPlayer

Genre-bending guitarist, singer, and songwriter Samantha Fish will release Kill Or Be Kind on August 30, 2019. A two-song single from the album featuring "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" was released today.

"Watch It Die" reveals Fish's prodigious gifts as a commanding vocalist and her sublime guitar technique, while the smouldering "Love Letters," is a fiery lament about love gone wrong that slowly builds to a searing bridge and solo.

Listen to, and download the new single from rounder.lnk.to/SFWatchLetters

Fish's incendiary live performances have been mesmerizing audiences all over the globe. Now, with Kill Or Be Kind, Fish is poised for a major breakthrough. The edgy roots music album was recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis and produced by three-time Grammy winner Scott Billington and mixed by two-time Grammy winner Steve Reynolds. Boasting 11 original songs ranging from the electric cigar box stomp of "Bulletproof" to the sweet Memphis R&B of "Trying Not To Fall in Love With You," the album is sure to establish Fish as a potent force in roots music.

The Kansas City-born-and-bred musician flirts with tradition but pushes genre boundaries to create a sound that's distinctly her own: "She Don't Live Here Anymore," co-written by Parker Millsap, features a Memphis soul underpinning with a sustained vibrato guitar sound that edges toward country. "Love Your Lies" persuasively straddles punk, rockabilly, and soul; while "You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)" is a classic blues rocker, thick with layered guitars and a cigar box solo. She shows off her range with the sweetly wistful "Dream Girl" and the cathartic, blues-saturated "Farewell My Fair Weather."

On May 6, Samantha kicked off her tour of UK and Europe with a live performance and interview on BBC Radio 2's highly-rated and influential The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews.

If you missed it, you can now listen to it on demand via BBC iPlayer via this link - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b25mg0/episodes/player

In June, she will start a tour of the US that includes stops at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, San Francisco's Fillmore, and the Troubadour in West Hollywood. More dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Love Letters

Samantha Fish / Jim McCormick

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Rhodes and Hammond B3 organ

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Watch It Die

Samantha Fish / Patrick Sweany

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Hammond B3 organ

Andriu Yanovski, Moog synthesizer

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph and Kayla Jasmine, backing vocals

UK And European Tour Dates:

Tickets – www.samanthafish.com

5/07/19 Sage 2 Gateshead

5/08/19 Milton Keynes The Stables

5/09/19 Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms (Sold Out)

5/10/19 Glasgow Òran Mór (Sold Out)

5/11/19 Birmingham O2 Academy Birmingham

5/12/19 Bristol Thekla (Sold Out)

5/13/19 Cambridge Cambridge Junction

5/14/19 Manchester Band on the Wall (Sold Out)

5/16/19 London The Garage

5/17/19 Brighton The Haunt

5/18/19 Oxford O2 Academy

5/19/19 Southampton The Brook

5/21/19 Paris Le Flow

5/22/19 Brussels AB Club

5/23/19 Amsterdam Q Factory

5/24/19 Hamburg Fabrik

5/25/19 Dortmund Piano

5/26/19 Nurnberg Hirsch

5/27/19 Munich Strom

5/28/19 Zurich Kaufleutenv

5/30/19 Milan Legend Club

I'm looking after the Tour Management for this run of dates, so if anyone is thinking of coming to any of these shows, come and say hello at the Merch Table after the show.

a custom white 200 series Wurlitzer electric piano.

www.vintagevibe.com

French poster postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no.EDC 284, VIS 1. Belgian poster for Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1957) with music by Miles Davis.

American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991) was one of the most important and influential jazz musicians in history. Davis played various styles, including bop, cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz-rock fusion. His style is recognisable and original and continues to influence jazz musicians decades after his death. His music for Louis Malle's Nouvelle Vague classic Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (1957) is one of the greatest Jazz soundtracks in cinema history.

Miles Dewey Davis III was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1926. Davis was the son of a dental surgeon, Dr. Miles Dewey Davis, Jr., and a music teacher, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis. He grew up in the Black middle class of East St. Louis after the family moved there shortly after his birth. His mother wanted him to learn to play the violin. Instead, his father gave him a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday, which he devoted himself to from then on. The family owned a ranch, where young Miles learned to ride horses. When Davis was 15, he played for audiences with bandleader Eddie Randall and studied under trumpeter Elwood Buchanan. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan emphasised the importance of playing without vibrato. Davis retained this distinctive, clear tone throughout his career. William Ruhlmann at AllMusic: "At 17, he joined Eddie Randle's Blue Devils, a territory band based in St. Louis. He enjoyed a personal apotheosis in 1944, just after graduating from high school, when he saw and was allowed to sit in with Billy Eckstine's big band, which was playing in St. Louis. The band featured trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker, the architects of the emerging bebop style of jazz, which was characterised by fast, inventive soloing and dynamic rhythm variations." In 1945, Davis moved to New York, ostensibly to study at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (renamed Juilliard) on a scholarship. In reality, he neglected his education and went in search of his heroes, such as Thelonious Monk and Coleman Hawkins. He regularly went out with Dizzy Gillespie, and they became good friends. By 1949, he had fulfilled his 'probation' as a fellow player, both on stage and on recordings. His own recording career subsequently flourished. That same year, Davis began collaborating with Gil Evans. This collaboration continued over the next 20 years for many of his major works. The records they made in the late 1940s were released on a limited basis for the first decade. Through New York's jazz clubs, Davis regularly came into contact with both users and sellers of illegal drugs. By 1950, he had a serious heroin addiction, possibly exacerbated by the lacklustre reception of his first personal recordings. In the first part of the 1950s, the talent Davis possessed seemed to be lost. He played several gigs, but these were uninspired. Aware of this, Davis returned to East Saint Louis in 1954, where he tried to kick the habit with the help of his father. The latter mistakenly thought it had to do with his teeth. Davis closed himself off from society until he was free of his drug addiction. By 1954, he had overcome his heroin addiction, although he continued to use cocaine, among other things. Reborn, he returned to New York and founded the first major version of the Miles Davis Quintet. This band included the young John Coltrane and occasionally some other jazz artists known at the time, such as Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus. Musically, the group continued where Davis left off in his sessions in the late 1940s. They avoided the rhythmic and harmonic complexity of the dominant bebop, and Davis was given the space to play long, legato and essentially melodic lines, in which he learned to make sense of modal music. This was a lifelong obsession for him.

In February 1957, Capitol finally issued the 1949 recordings, together on an LP called 'Birth of the Cool'. He also recorded 'Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet'. These albums defined the sound of cool jazz, one of the dominant trends in music for the next decade and beyond. In December 1957, Miles Davis returned to Paris, where he improvised the background music for the film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1957) with Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet. Davis recorded the music in a single recording session while he watched a screening. He composed it while watching a rough cut and then invited a quartet of French and US musicians in from 11 pm to 5 am one night, improvising each number and allegedly sipping champagne with Jeanne Moreau and Louis Malle. Claudio Carvalho at IMDb: "The soundtrack with the music of Miles Davis gives a touch of class to this little masterpiece. The result is one of the best thrillers entwined with comedy of errors that I have ever seen." While the rest of the music establishment was still trying to accept Miles Davis' innovations, he himself was further along. Reunited with Gil Evans, he recorded a series of albums of great variety and complexity, demonstrating his mastery of his instrument in almost every musical context. On the first album, 'Miles Ahead' (1957), he played with a traditional jazz big band. This had a driven brass section arranged by Gil Evans. In addition to jazz numbers (including Dave Brubeck's 'The Duke'), the two took on Léo Delibes' 'Les Filles de Cadix'. This was the first time Davis recorded European classical music. 'Milestones' (1958) captured the sound of his current sextet, which now consisted of Davis, John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (alto sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Musically, this album encompassed both the past and future of jazz. Davis showed he could play blues and bebop (accompanied by Garland), but the centrepiece is the title track, a composition by Davis around the Dorian and Aeolian modes and with the free improvisational modal style Davis made his own. This modal style flourished on 'Kind of Blue' (1959), an album that became a landmark in modern jazz and the most popular album of Davis' career. It eventually sold over two million copies, a phenomenal success for a jazz record. The sextet improvised on short modal themes that had not been rehearsed beforehand. In the group, Bill Evans took over the piano, bringing classical influences to the group. On one of the tracks, Wynton Kelly played piano. He later became a permanent member of the group. After 'Kind of Blue', the group broke up. Coltrane, Evans and Adderley continued as bandleaders. Miles Davis found less inspiration, and his group changed line-ups regularly.

In 1964, Miles Davis formed his second major quintet. Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Ron Carter on bass and the still young Tony Williams on drums. Davis stated, "You have to know the rules first to then be able to break them." Jazz standards were played live, pushing the boundaries of tradition. Long improvisations with much emphasis on harmonic boundaries and tight group playing allowed him to play with texture more than before. Live, he played standards and in the studio new work, especially compositions by his saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The limits were reached on 'Live at Plugged Nickel'. It formed a counterpoint to the free jazz of Ornette Coleman, whom Davis reviled in his autobiography. In June 1970, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and John McLaughlin, among others, met for four nights at the modest nightclub The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. A six-song CD of those performances was released in 2006. In the late 1960s, Davis went electric with an electric piano, electric bass and an electric guitar. The 'groove' became important. After Davis heard 'Machine Gun' by Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival, Davis immediately wanted to start a band with him. "It's that goddamned motherfucking 'Machine Gun'," Miles replied when asked what he thought of Hendrix's music. Due to Hendrix's death, it never took place. In the 1970s, he tried to reach black youth by putting funk influences in his music. As heard on the revolutionary album 'On The Corner'. 'Bitches Brew' (1970) became a landmark for emerging jazz fusion music. In late 1975, Davis withdrew from music and no longer wanted to play the trumpet. He again struggled with addiction, this time to cocaine and alcohol. Poor health, partly caused by years of excessive drug use, led to a radio silence of almost six years. Miles Davis returned to music anyway. His style changed more to a pop style. He recorded new, intriguing albums such as electronic-driven Tutu or Amandla, as well as Spanish-flavoured music for the film Siesta (Mary Lambert, 1987) with Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne. Miles Davis died in Santa Monica, California, in 1991. He was 65. Already in a coma, he died of pneumonia following a severe stroke and was buried next to Duke Ellington at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. Davis was married to Frances Taylor (1958-1968), Betty Mabry (1968-1969) and actress Cicely Tyson (1981-1988). He had four children: Cheryl (1944), Gregory (1946), Miles IV (1950) and Erin (1970). Twenty-four years after Davis' death, he was the subject of Miles Ahead (2015), a biopic co-written and directed by Don Cheadle, who also portrayed him. Its soundtrack functioned as a career overview with additional music provided by pianist Robert Glasper and associates. In 2020, the trumpeter was also the focus of director Stanley Nelson's documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which showcased music from throughout Davis' career.

Sources: William Ruhlmann (AllMusic), Piotr Strzyzowski (IMDb), Claudio Carvalho (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

FTL Lashes

Leverocci Round nails

Maitreya Dakota Dress in Opium Delicate

Polished Chunk MIneral ring from Paper Moon

Celoe Jacqualine Sandals in Opulence

Lelutka Vibrato hair in IrishRed

Skin: Essences Thursday (beach) (ginger)

Gazing @U BlueMist Sm Iris by Candace Hudson

[mock] Glitter Bomb{Betty Bronze} [Lip 2]

Ahhh...the ‘57 Gold Top. After five years, this is the first production Gibson Les Paul Standard to feature the humbucking pickup and the Tune-o-matic bridge, both of which have been staples on electric guitars for more than 50 years. In another year, the Standard would get its cherry sunburst top and be on its way to ‘Burst legend. All of which makes this an important guitar in the history of the Les Paul and Gibson. But this one is also a fantastic player that’s still a comfortable, usable instrument (if you’re into that particular daredevilism).

It’s also extremely rare. According to the book "Gibson Shipment Totals 1937-1979", there were 598 Les Paul Goldtops shipped from Kalamazoo in 1957, some with Bigsby vibratos. Of course, this means there were less than 598 with the coveted Tune-o-matic bridge. Add to it the number of '57s that met untimely deaths in fires or onstage antics, and we have one very rare guitar on our hands that's also great to play. Beyond that, there’s not much else to say—this is a breathtaking piece of Gibson and rock n’ roll history.

a wonderful cat and year with this pet

Miezi Grace Silvana

Our Maine Coon Silver Tabby loves snow.

Hauskatze -

aka (Felis Silvestris catus) de Maine, USA

-

Als "sprechende Katze" kann sie ganz gezielt und sehr deutlich auf ihre Wünsche aufmerksam machen. Unsere Maine Coon ist eine sehr „sozial“ eingestellte Katze.

-

Haus- und Gebrauchskatze (engl.: working cat)

-

Wegen ihres Wesens und ihrer Größe wird sie auch als gentle giant („sanfter Riese“) bezeichnet.

-

Die Augen stehen weit auseinander. Die Ohren sind groß und breit am Ansatz. Kleine Luchs-pinsel sind erwünscht.

Ohrbüschel schützen die Ohren vor der Kälte.

Die Katzen haben ein langes, dichtes und wasserabweisendes Fell.

Zwischen den Zehen ragen Fellbüschel unten heraus; die „Schneeschuhe“.

Eine Maine Coon ist erst mit etwa drei Jahren ausgewachsen.

-

Maine-Coon-Katze (engl. coon von raccoon „Waschbär“), auch Amerikanische Waldkatze genannt.

Die großen Augen sind frontal ausgerichtet, wodurch räumliches Sehen und exaktes Einschätzen von Entfernungen möglich sind. Die Katze nimmt besonders gut rasche Bewegungen wahr und bei Dunkelheit benötigt sie im Verhältnis zum Menschen lediglich ein Sechstel der Lichtmenge, um ein Bild zu empfangen.

wiki

Maine Coon Katze

.en - viele Fotos

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Coon

-

Samsung Galaxy S5

ISO 250

●

Sie kommt von hinten übers Sofa und begrüßt mich auf Kopfhöhe - quasi face to face

...

About:

● The whiskers of a cat - aka

"Schnurrhaare"

Vibrissen, auch Sinus-, Tast- oder Schnurrhaare genannt (lateinisch vibrissa, Plural vibrissae), sind spezielle Haare, die vielen Säugetieren zumeist im Gesicht wachsen. Sie sind dicker, fester und länger als gewöhnliche Haare und auf die Wahrnehmung taktiler Reize spezialisiert.

Hauskatzen haben außer im Gesicht auch Tasthaare an der Innenseite ihrer Vorderläufe.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrisse

Vibrissen bestehen wie alle Haare aus leblosem Material, enthalten keine Nerven und wachsen ebenso nach. Im Unterschied zu anderen Haaren sind sie jedoch in einen speziellen Haarbalg (Follikel) eingebettet, der zwischen seiner äußeren und inneren Lage eine blutgefüllte Kapsel enthält, den sogenannten Blutsinus. In der Wand liegen zahlreiche freie Nervenenden. Wird ein Tasthaar berührt, biegt es sich und bewegt das Blut in der Kapsel zur Seite. Das Blut verstärkt die Bewegung und ermöglicht den Nerven an der Basis, selbst minimale Reize wahrzunehmen. Bei manchen Säugetieren sind die Follikel der Tasthaare außerdem von Muskelgewebe umgeben, wodurch sie bewegt werden können um die Umgebung aktiv zu erkunden.

Vibrissen bieten Tieren Vorteile, sich im Dunkeln oder in trübem Wasser zurechtfinden, Gefahren wahrzunehmen oder Nahrung aufzuspüren.

The whiskers of a cat qualify as vibrissae (that’s the plural of vibrissa), as do the hairlike feathers around the bill of some birds - especially the insect-feeding kind. And when scientists first used vibrissa in the late 17th century, they used the word to refer specifically to the hairs inside the human nostril.

Science got this word, as it has many others, from Latin. Vibrissa comes from vibrare, which means all of the following: "to brandish," "to wave," "to rock," and "to propel suddenly." Other vibrare descendents in English include vibrate, vibrato, and veer.

misspainfullyhip.com/2013/04/18/i-dont-care-i-love-it/

French promotion card by Imp. Cornu, Paris for Odeon / EMI / Pathé Marconi, no. 12-68. Photo: Philippe Galland.

Though sometimes dismissed in France as little more than a 'chanteur de charme' ('a ladies' singer') Julien Clerc (1947) in fact enjoyed one of the most successful and longest-lived careers in contemporary French pop. He shaped the nouvelle chanson aesthetic across a span of decades that began in the shadow of the 1968 student rebellions, with the hit 'La Cavalerie'. He continued well into the following century with such evergreens as 'Si on Chantait' and 'This Melody'.

Julien Clerc was born Paul-Alain Auguste Leclerc in 1947 in Paris. He was the son of Paul Leclerc, a senior UNESCO official, and Évelyne Merlot. His parents divorced in 1949. While his father preferred classical music, his mother, who came from the French Antilles island of Guadeloupe, introduced him to the music of singers such as Georges Brassens and Édith Piaf. Ghislaine, his father's second wife, a harpsichordist, introduced him to the piano. Leclerc started playing the piano at the age of six. During his time at secondary school, he met Maurice Vallet, and they began writing songs. Encouraged by his father, he enrolled in law school at the Sorbonne, but spent more time in the cafés in front of the university, particularly at L'Écritoire. It was there, in 1966, that he met Étienne Roda-Gil, a dandy poet and son of a Spanish revolutionary, who would become his alter ego and official lyricist. Roda-Gil wrote the lyrics for most of Leclerc's compositions until 1980 and again from 1992 onwards. Leclerc adopted the stage name Julien Clerc and signed a contract with the Pathé-Marconi label. In May 1968, he released his first album, which won the Académie Charles Cros Record Award. His first single, 'La cavalerie', opened a new chapter in the history of French chanson. The verses written by Roda Gil and Clerc's contemporary hippie look, with his long black curls, resonated strongly with young audiences in Paris in May 1968. RFI: "Julien Clerc's neo-symphonic music and Vallet and Roda-Gil's almost dreamlike lyrics were well suited to this period of change. These songs were welcomed as a revival of traditional French chanson, and their highly harmonic style was quite unusual at the time, especially in France. In addition, Julien Clerc's voice, characterised by its famous vibrato, allowed the singer to stand out from the very beginning." In 1969, Clerc performed at the Olympia for the first time as the opening act for a Gilbert Bécaud concert. Despite having only been active in music for a year, the performance was a great success. He would later return to the Olympia repeatedly for a series of concerts.

From May 1969 to February 1970, Julien Clerc starred as Claude Bukowski in the highly successful Paris production of the musical 'Hair'. This show greatly increased his popularity in France. That year, the press wrote about his relationship with singer France Gall, which would last four years. At the age of 24, Julien Clerc was already a big star. After three LPs, 'Yann et les dauphins' (1968), 'Des jours entiers à t’aimer' (1970) and 'Niagara' (1971), he received his first gold record in 1972 for his next studio album, 'Liberté égalité ou la mort'. Each of his albums in the 1970s, which were released at roughly yearly intervals, also went gold. In Europe, he had numerous hits, such as 'Hélène', 'Si on chantait', 'Elle voulait qu'on l'appelle Venise', 'Ce n'est rien' and 'This melody'. Lyricist Etienne Roda-Gil was responsible for his greatest successes. Clerc also tried his hand at acting. He starred in Claude Goretta's TV film Le temps d'un portrait / Time for a Portrait (1971). During the filming of D'amour et d'eau fraîche / Love and Cool Water (Jean-Pierre Blanc, 1976), he met the young actress Miou-Miou. In the film, they played the leading roles as a young couple in love. During the shooting of the film, Patrick Dewaere - Miou Miou's husband at the time -violently interfered with Julien Clerc, who seduced her. It was too late. Miou-Miou would be Clerc's partner until 1981. He appeared with Georges Brassens and Françoise Hardy in Philippe Chatel's children's TV musical Emilie Jolie (Jean-Christophe Averty, 1980) and sang the title song. He also participated in '36 Front Populaire', a double album about the turbulent Popular Front period.

In 1982, Julien Clerc achieved platinum status with 'Femmes indiscrétion et blasphème'. Four more platinum records followed until 1990. Clerc experimented with other musical styles, for example, on the album 'Cœur de rocker'. After a temporary separation from his favourite author, Roda-Gil, he returned to his former chanson style after a short time. Clerc accompanied himself on the grand piano in many of his songs. Over the years, Clerc's repertoire varied from his own compositions to classic French songs such as 'Comme ici' by Georges Brassens and L'hymne à l'amour by Édith Piaf. He performed in Africa, America and Europe. In 2008, the album Où s'en vont les avions? was released. In 2009, Clerc celebrated his 40th anniversary as an artist. Julien Clerc has been a member of Les Enfoirés for several years, a changing group of French artists who support Les Restos du Cœur, an organisation that helps the homeless. In early 2019, he appeared as a coach on the French version of The Voice. In November 2019, the duet album 'Duos' was released, on which Clerc sings duets with Carla Bruni, Francis Cabrel, Calogero and Zaz, among others. Christophe Maé, Sandrine Kiberlain and Soprano also sing on the album. Clerc has five children: daughters Angèle (adopted) and Jeanne Herry with French actress Miou-Miou; daughter Vanille and son Barnabé with then-wife Virginie Coupérie, and son Léonard with journalist and screenwriter Hélène Grémillon, whom he married in 2012.

Sources: AllMusic, RFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Serie Vibrato Angélico

Mixta sobre papel

70 x 50 cms

Marvilla/14

Serie Vibrato Angélico

Mixta sobre papel

70 x 50 cms

Marvilla/14

Gretsch Guitars G6136T White Falcon with Bigsby Features:

Hollowbody

Single cutaway

25-1/2" (648mm) scale length

Arched laminated maple top

Laminated Maple Body, 17" Wide, 2-3/4" Deep

3-Piece Maple neck

2 High Sensitive Filter'Tron Pickups

3-Position Toggle: Position 1. Bridge Pickup, Position 2. Bridge and Neck Pickups, Position 3. Neck Pickup

Controls: Volume 1. (Neck Pickup), Volume 2. (Bridge Pickup), Master Volume, 3-Position Toggle Master Tone Switch

1-11/16" (43mm) nut width

Ebony fretboard, 12" radius (305mm)

Ebony-Based Space-Control Roller-Bridge

Bigsby B6GB Vibrato Tailpiece

Gold-plated hardware

Gloss urethane finish

22 frets

Grover® Imperial Gold-Plated Die-cast Tuners

Another project from the backlog... finally done and ready to play.

Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

What it is?

German postcard by Verlag und Druckerei Erwin Preuss, Dresden-Freital, Serie 1 'Die neue farbige Filmstarkarte', no. 10. Photo: Charlott Serda.

Chilean singer and actress Rosita Serrano (1914–1997) had her biggest success in Nazi Germany. Her nickname was 'the Chilenische Nachtigall' (Chilean Nightingale), although her most popular song was 'La Paloma' (The Dove).

Rosita Serrano was born María Martha Esther Alduante (or Aldunate) del Campo in Viña del Mar, Chile in 1914. She was the daughter of diplomat Héctor Alduante (or Aldunate) and opera singer Sofía del Campo. In the early 1930s, she and her mother moved to Europe. Initially, they lived in Portugal and France but by 1936 they moved to Berlin. Serrano had her first success at the Metropol Theater, where she performed a part in the operetta Maske in Blau. Next, she performed Chilean folk songs in another legendary Berlin theatre, Wintergarten. During that time she was discovered by German composer Peter Kreuder who managed that she got a record contract at the German Telefunken. From then on she performed in the German language Her hits included Roter Mohn (Red poppy), Schön die Musik (Beautiful Music), Küß mich, bitte, bitte, küß mich (Kiss me, please, please kiss me) and Und die Musik spielt dazu (And the Music plays to it). Because of her bell-like voice and pitch-perfect whistling the German public gave her the nickname Chilenische Nachtigall (Chilean Nightingale). By 1938 she received roles in the revue films Es leuchten die Sterne/The Stars Shine (Hans H, Zerlett, 1938), Bel Ami (Willi Forst, 1939), Der vierte kommt nicht/ The fourth is not coming (Max W. Kimmich, 1939), and Die kluge Schwiegermutter/The Wise Mother in Law (Hans Deppe, 1939) featuring Ida Wüst. Serrano sang both in German and Spanish and her repertoire varied from folk to pop, including flamenco, rumba, tango, and mambo. According to Wikipedia, “her voice style was mainly operatic coloratura soprano with a deep, fast vibrato. She added frequent embellishments such as soaring arpeggiation and melisma. Some songs were recorded with a few words whispered or spoken, and she occasionally emphasized words with a gritty, growling jazz style reminiscent of African-American blues singer Ethel Waters. She was a pitch-perfect whistler in the manner of Bing Crosby.”

Between film shoots, Rosita Serrano went on tour with two dance orchestras - Kurt Hohenberger's and Teddy Stauffer's. Due to the intercession of Joseph Goebbels, she got gigs in the radio show Wunschkonzert für die Wehrmacht (the musical request programme for the Wehrmacht). In 1940 she recorded the very popular song La Paloma, heard throughout Germany. Years later it was used again on the soundtracks of the films Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981) and The House of the Spirits (Bille August, 1993).She co-starred with Paul Hörbiger in the comedy Herzensfreud – Herzensleid/Heartfelt joy - heartbreak (Hubert Marischka, 1940). In 1943 while on tour in Sweden, Serrano was accused by Germany of being a spy—she had donated a benefit performance to Jewish refugees. She travelled to Chile to avoid the arrest. Her songs were subsequently blacklisted in Nazi Germany. Serrano toured in the United States, but her German repertoire was not popular. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1950, but little came of the publicity. In 1951, she went to West Germany to play a Cuban singer in the film Schwarze Augen/Dark Eyes (Géza von Bolváry, 1951) starring Cornell Borchers, and the next year she sang in the film Saison in Salzburg/Season in Saltzburg (Ernst Marischka, 1952). Her record contract with Telefunken was broken after she was whistled away during a Berlin performance. Another come-back attempt with Kurt Hohenberger in 1957 was an only mediocre success. In the following decades, she had some appearances in German TV talk shows. In her native Chile, where she spent the last years of her life, the public never forgave her for performing in Nazi Germany. Rosita Serrano died forgotten and in poverty in Santiago in 1997.

Sources: May El (IMDb), Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line) (German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Enrico Caruso’s ascendancy coincided with the dawn of the twentieth century, when the world of opera was moving away from the contrived bel canto (“beautiful singing”) style, with its emphasis on artifice and vibrato, to a verismo (“realism”) approach. The warmth and sincerity of his voice—and personality— shone in this more natural style and set the standard for contemporary greats like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Through his exploitation of the nascent phonograph industry, Caruso is also largely responsible for the sweeping interest in opera of the 1910s and ’20s. And for this, Stanley Jackson wrote in his book Caruso, he may never be rivaled, for later tenors could not hope to find themselves in a similarly fortuitous position and thus would most certainly “find it more difficult to win such universal affection as the bubbly, warm-hearted little Neapolitan whose voice soared and sobbed from the first wheezy phonographs to bring a new magic into countless lives.”

Born in Naples, Italy, in 1873, the third of seven children (early sources erroneously state that he was the 18th of 21), Caruso was raised in squalor. His birthplace, according to Jackson, was a “two-storeyed house, flaky with peeling stucco, [accommodating] several families, who shared a solitary cold-water tap on the landing, and like every other dwelling in that locality it lacked indoor sanitation.” As a boy, Caruso received very little formal education; his only training in a social setting came from his church choir, where he displayed a pure voice and a keen memory for songs. More often than not, however, he skipped choir practice to sing with street minstrels for café patrons.

At the age of ten Caruso began working a variety of menial jobs—mechanic, jute weaver—but his passion for singing often led him back to the streets. Eight years later, an aspiring baritone named Eduardo Missiano heard Caruso singing by a local swimming pool. Impressed, Missiano took Caruso to his voice teacher, Guglielmo Vergine. Vergine on hearing Caruso, compared the tenor’s voice to “the wind whistling through the chimney,” Michael Scott recounted in The Great Caruso. Although he disliked Caruso’s Neapolitan café style, flashy gestures, and unrefined and unrestrained vocalizing, Vergine finally agreed to accept Caruso as his student. But “the lessons ended after three years,” John Kobler wrote in American Heritage, “and Caruso’s formal musical training thereafter remained almost as meager as his scholastic education. He could read a score only with difficulty. He played no musical instrument. He sang largely by ear.”

On March 15, 1895, Caruso made his professional debut in L’Amico Francesco, a now-forgotten opera by an amateur composer. He was not an immediate sensation.

For the Record…

Bom Errico Caruso (adopted more formal Enrico for stage), February 27 (some sources say 25), 1873, in Naples, Italy; died of pneumonia and peritonitis in 1921 in Naples; son of Marcellino (a mechanic) and Anna (Baldini) Caruso; married Dorothy Park Benjamin, 1918; children: Gloria; (with Ada Giachetti) Rodolfo, Enrico Jr. Education: Studied voice with Guglielmo Vergine, 1891-94, and Vincenzo Lombardi, 1896-97.

Worked as laborer, including jobs as mechanic and jute weaver, beginning c. 1883; debuted in L’Amico Francesco at Teatro Nuovo, Naples, 1894; expanded repertoire to include La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, and Faust, among others; first sang Canio in I Pagliacci, 1896, and Rodolfo in La Bohème, 1897; debuted in La Bohème at La Scala, Milan, 1899; performed internationally, including appearances in Moscow, Buenos Aries, Monte Carlo, and London, beginning in 1899; made first recordings, 1902; debuted in U.S. at Metropolitan Opera, New York City, 1903. Appeared in silent films My Cousin and A Splendid Romance, 1918; subject of fictional film biography The Great Caruso, 1950.

Awards: Order of the Commendatore of the Crown of Italy; Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor; Order of the Crown Eagle of Prussia; honorary captain of the New York City Police Department.

His vocal range was limited; he often had to transpose the musical score down a halftone since he had trouble in the upper register, especially hitting high C. But impresarios who heard Caruso recognized his innate gift and cast him in significant productions such as Faust, Rigoletto, and La Traviata. With stage experience and brief training with another vocal teacher, Vincenzo Lombardo, the singer made steady progress, refining the natural beauty of his voice.

“Who Has Sent You to Me? God?”

In 1897, studying for the part of Rodolpho in Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, Caruso went to the composer’s villa to secure Puccini’s consent of his interpretation. As told by author Jackson, after Caruso sang a few measures of the first-act aria, “Che gelida manima,” Puccini “swivelled in his chair and murmured in amazement, ’Who has sent you to me? God?’”

Caruso’s instrument was “a voice of the South, full of warmth, charm, and lusciousness,” described a commentator of the era who was quoted in Howard Greenfeld’s book Caruso. But what truly set Caruso apart—from his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors—was his ability to eliminate the space between singer and listener, to intensify “the emotional effects upon his audience,” testified American Heritage contributor Kobler. “His vocalized feelings, variously spiritual, earthy, carnal, seemed to resonate within the hearer’s body. Rosa Ponselle, the American soprano who made her debut opposite Caruso, called it “a voice that loves you.’”

And his timbre was matched by sheer power; at the height of his career, Caruso gave concerts in venues as large as New York City’s Yankee Stadium without microphones and was clearly heard by all. Still, he reached his greatest audience, across both distance and time, through the small, recorded medium of the phonograph. “Few performers deserve . . . recognition more than Caruso,” David Hamilton proclaimed in the New York Times. “[His] records made him the universal model for later generations of tenors, while his reputation played a major role in establishing the phonograph socially and economically.”

Recording Pioneer

Caruso made his first recording on April 11, 1902, in a hotel suite in Milan, Italy. Over the remaining 19 years of his life he made an additional 488 recordings, almost all for the Victor label. He earned more than two million dollars from recording alone, the company almost twice that. But, most important, his recordings brought grand opera to the uninitiated. Millions cried along with his version of Canio’s sobbing “Vesti la giubba,” from/Pagliacci. The development of the American opera audience from a rarefied community at the turn of the century to a diverse populace in modern times can be directly attributed to Caruso’s recordings.

But Caruso’s allure was not solely the result of his singing. “Quick to laughter and to tears, amorous, buffoonish,... speaking a comically fractured English, round and paunchy, Caruso presented an image that appealed enormously to multitudes of ordinary Americans,” Kobler pointed out. Indeed, his offstage behavior was as interesting to the public as that of his onstage personas. He had numerous affairs with women, which often ended in court. He had an 11-year relationship, beginning in 1897, with soprano Ada Giachetti, who had left her husband and son for the much younger tenor. She bore Caruso two sons, then ran off with the family chauffeur. Three years later, Giachetti sued Caruso for attempting to damage her career and for theft of her jewelry. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Offstage Shenanigans

Caruso was not exonerated, however, in what became known as the “Monkey House Case.” On November 16, 1906, Caruso went to the Monkey House in the Central Park Zoo, one of his favorite retreats in his adopted hometown of New York City. There a young woman accused him of pinching her bottom. A policeman on the scene immediately took Caruso—confused and sobbing—to jail. The woman failed to appear at the consequent trial, and police were unable to produce any witnesses other than the arresting officer, who turned out to have been best man at the accuser’s wedding. The judge found Caruso guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him ten dollars. The public, for its part, though initially unsure of Caruso’s innocence, soon returned to its thunderous approval of his performances.

Despite these episodes, Caruso’s life outside the theater was not entirely tumultuous. His marriage to Dorothy Park Benjamin in 1918 was happy and secure. His celebrated earnings allowed him to collect art, stamps, and coins. His clothing and furnishings were luxurious. He ate with gusto. And he was extremely generous. A gifted caricaturist, Caruso often gave drawings away. He would fill his pockets with gold coins and shower stagehands with them at the end of Christmastime productions. He also supported many family members, gave numerous charity concerts, and helped raise millions of dollars for the Allied cause during World War I. This remarkable man even paid his taxes early. “If I wait, something might happen to me, then it would be hard to collect,” Caruso reasoned, as recounted by Kobler. “Now I pay, then if something happen to me the money belongs to the United States, and that is good.”

Caruso’s expansive approach to life, however, rendered his own short. Constant recording and performance demands and the singer’s unchecked appetites took their toll on his health; he died in Naples, in 1921, from pneumonia and peritonitis. He was 48 years old. “Caruso may have been a greater master of comedy than tragedy,” Great Caruso author Scott wrote, “yet there was no levity in his approach to his art, for as each year passed and he became an ever more celebrated singer, his fame—ably demonstrated by frequent new issues of ever improving records—made increasing demands of him. In those last years he rode a tiger.”

Selected discography

Enrico Caruso: 21 Favorite Arias, RCA, 1987.

Enrico Caruso, Pearl, 1988.

Enrico Caruso in Arias, Duets, and Songs, Supraphon, 1988.

Caruso in Opera, Nimbus, 1989.

Caruso in Song, Nimbus, 1990.

The Compíete Caruso, BMG Classics, 1990.

Enrico Caruso in Opera: Early New York Recordings (1904-06), Conifer, 1990.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 1 (1902-1908), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 2 (1908-1912), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 3 (1912-1916), Pearl, 1991.

The Caruso Edition: Volume 4 (1916-1921),, Pearl, 1991.

Caruso in Ensemble, Nimbus, 1992.

Addio Mia Bella Napoli, Replay/Qualiton, 1993.

Sources

Books

Caruso, Enrico, Jr., and Andrew Farkas, Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family, Amadeus Press, 1990.

Greenfeld, Howard, Caruso, Putnam, 1983.

Jackson, Stanley, Caruso, Stein & Day, 1972.

Scott, Michael, The Great Caruso, Knopf, 1988.

Periodicals

American Heritage, February/March 1984.

Economist, March 9, 1991.

New Republic, August 8, 1988.

New York Times, January 6, 1991.

—Rob Nagel

Cite this article

Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

#enrico-picciotto, enrico picciotto

West German flyer by Illustrierte Film-Bühne (merged with Illustrierte Film-Kurier), no. 4417, for Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1957) with music by Miles Davis, page 1. Photos: Pallas Film. The German title was Fahrstuhl zum Schafott.

American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991) was one of the most important and influential jazz musicians in history. Davis played various styles, including bop, cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz-rock fusion. His style is recognisable and original and continues to influence jazz musicians decades after his death. His music for Louis Malle's Nouvelle Vague classic Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (1957) is one of the greatest Jazz soundtracks in cinema history.

Miles Dewey Davis III was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1926. Davis was the son of a dental surgeon, Dr. Miles Dewey Davis, Jr., and a music teacher, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis. He grew up in the Black middle class of East St. Louis after the family moved there shortly after his birth. His mother wanted him to learn to play the violin. Instead, his father gave him a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday, which he devoted himself to from then on. The family owned a ranch, where young Miles learned to ride horses. When Davis was 15, he played for audiences with bandleader Eddie Randall and studied under trumpeter Elwood Buchanan. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan emphasised the importance of playing without vibrato. Davis retained this distinctive, clear tone throughout his career. William Ruhlmann at AllMusic: "At 17, he joined Eddie Randle's Blue Devils, a territory band based in St. Louis. He enjoyed a personal apotheosis in 1944, just after graduating from high school, when he saw and was allowed to sit in with Billy Eckstine's big band, which was playing in St. Louis. The band featured trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker, the architects of the emerging bebop style of jazz, which was characterised by fast, inventive soloing and dynamic rhythm variations." In 1945, Davis moved to New York, ostensibly to study at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (renamed Juilliard) on a scholarship. In reality, he neglected his education and went in search of his heroes, such as Thelonious Monk and Coleman Hawkins. He regularly went out with Dizzy Gillespie, and they became good friends. By 1949, he had fulfilled his 'probation' as a fellow player, both on stage and on recordings. His own recording career subsequently flourished. That same year, Davis began collaborating with Gil Evans. This collaboration continued over the next 20 years for many of his major works. The records they made in the late 1940s were released on a limited basis for the first decade. Through New York's jazz clubs, Davis regularly came into contact with both users and sellers of illegal drugs. By 1950, he had a serious heroin addiction, possibly exacerbated by the lacklustre reception of his first personal recordings. In the first part of the 1950s, the talent Davis possessed seemed to be lost. He played several gigs, but these were uninspired. Aware of this, Davis returned to East Saint Louis in 1954, where he tried to kick the habit with the help of his father. The latter mistakenly thought it had to do with his teeth. Davis closed himself off from society until he was free of his drug addiction. By 1954, he had overcome his heroin addiction, although he continued to use cocaine, among other things. Reborn, he returned to New York and founded the first major version of the Miles Davis Quintet. This band included the young John Coltrane and occasionally some other jazz artists known at the time, such as Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus. Musically, the group continued where Davis left off in his sessions in the late 1940s. They avoided the rhythmic and harmonic complexity of the dominant bebop, and Davis was given the space to play long, legato and essentially melodic lines, in which he learned to make sense of modal music. This was a lifelong obsession for him.

In February 1957, Capitol finally issued the 1949 recordings, together on an LP called 'Birth of the Cool'. He also recorded 'Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet'. These albums defined the sound of cool jazz, one of the dominant trends in music for the next decade and beyond. In December 1957, Miles Davis returned to Paris, where he improvised the background music for the film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1957) with Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet. Davis recorded the music in a single recording session while he watched a screening. He composed it while watching a rough cut and then invited a quartet of French and US musicians in from 11 pm to 5 am one night, improvising each number and allegedly sipping champagne with Jeanne Moreau and Louis Malle. Claudio Carvalho at IMDb: "The soundtrack with the music of Miles Davis gives a touch of class to this little masterpiece. The result is one of the best thrillers entwined with comedy of errors that I have ever seen." While the rest of the music establishment was still trying to accept Miles Davis' innovations, he himself was further along. Reunited with Gil Evans, he recorded a series of albums of great variety and complexity, demonstrating his mastery of his instrument in almost every musical context. On the first album, 'Miles Ahead' (1957), he played with a traditional jazz big band. This had a driven brass section arranged by Gil Evans. In addition to jazz numbers (including Dave Brubeck's 'The Duke'), the two took on Léo Delibes' 'Les Filles de Cadix'. This was the first time Davis recorded European classical music. 'Milestones' (1958) captured the sound of his current sextet, which now consisted of Davis, John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (alto sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Musically, this album encompassed both the past and future of jazz. Davis showed he could play blues and bebop (accompanied by Garland), but the centrepiece is the title track, a composition by Davis around the Dorian and Aeolian modes and with the free improvisational modal style Davis made his own. This modal style flourished on 'Kind of Blue' (1959), an album that became a landmark in modern jazz and the most popular album of Davis' career. It eventually sold over two million copies, a phenomenal success for a jazz record. The sextet improvised on short modal themes that had not been rehearsed beforehand. In the group, Bill Evans took over the piano, bringing classical influences to the group. On one of the tracks, Wynton Kelly played piano. He later became a permanent member of the group. After 'Kind of Blue', the group broke up. Coltrane, Evans and Adderley continued as bandleaders. Miles Davis found less inspiration, and his group changed line-ups regularly.

In 1964, Miles Davis formed his second major quintet. Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Ron Carter on bass and the still young Tony Williams on drums. Davis stated, "You have to know the rules first to then be able to break them." Jazz standards were played live, pushing the boundaries of tradition. Long improvisations with much emphasis on harmonic boundaries and tight group playing allowed him to play with texture more than before. Live, he played standards and in the studio new work, especially compositions by his saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The limits were reached on 'Live at Plugged Nickel'. It formed a counterpoint to the free jazz of Ornette Coleman, whom Davis reviled in his autobiography. In June 1970, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and John McLaughlin, among others, met for four nights at the modest nightclub The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. A six-song CD of those performances was released in 2006. In the late 1960s, Davis went electric with an electric piano, electric bass and an electric guitar. The 'groove' became important. After Davis heard 'Machine Gun' by Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival, Davis immediately wanted to start a band with him. "It's that goddamned motherfucking 'Machine Gun'," Miles replied when asked what he thought of Hendrix's music. Due to Hendrix's death, it never took place. In the 1970s, he tried to reach black youth by putting funk influences in his music. As heard on the revolutionary album 'On The Corner'. 'Bitches Brew' (1970) became a landmark for emerging jazz fusion music. In late 1975, Davis withdrew from music and no longer wanted to play the trumpet. He again struggled with addiction, this time to cocaine and alcohol. Poor health, partly caused by years of excessive drug use, led to a radio silence of almost six years. Miles Davis returned to music anyway. His style changed more to a pop style. He recorded new, intriguing albums such as electronic-driven Tutu or Amandla, as well as Spanish-flavoured music for the film Siesta (Mary Lambert, 1987) with Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne. Miles Davis died in Santa Monica, California, in 1991. He was 65. Already in a coma, he died of pneumonia following a severe stroke and was buried next to Duke Ellington at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. Davis was married to Frances Taylor (1958-1968), Betty Mabry (1968-1969) and actress Cicely Tyson (1981-1988). He had four children: Cheryl (1944), Gregory (1946), Miles IV (1950) and Erin (1970). Twenty-four years after Davis' death, he was the subject of Miles Ahead (2015), a biopic co-written and directed by Don Cheadle, who also portrayed him. Its soundtrack functioned as a career overview with additional music provided by pianist Robert Glasper and associates. In 2020, the trumpeter was also the focus of director Stanley Nelson's documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which showcased music from throughout Davis' career.

Sources: William Ruhlmann (AllMusic), Piotr Strzyzowski (IMDb), Claudio Carvalho (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Epiphone Casino with B70 vibrato tailpiece. In better light than yesterday's photos!

1. circumzenithal arc, 2. Bubble tries, 3. atanh(cos((1+I)/z^3))), 4. Untitled, 5. Evolution of a contrail, 6. Saturday morning, travel day, 7. Changing my mind, 8. Albi,

9. Sundog, 10. parhelion over Stockholm, 11. circumzenithal arc 1, 12. couloirinfini, 13. Frozen Bubble, 14. Frozen lemon close up, 15. George's secret key to the universe, 16. Desespoir,

17. Escher's Balkon, 18. My whole kitchen in a sphere, 19. God rays, 20. Earthshine, 21. Unknown Flower, 22. Rock Planet, 23. Fractal Frost, 24. Black hole,

25. Beginning of an eclipse, 26. Light Fan, 27. Another world in a marble, 28. November Sunset, 29. November sunset, 30. Sunset, 31. Subsun and subparhelion (??), 32. Moon, clouds and wind,

33. Contrast, 34. IMG_4238, 35. IMG_3132, 36. Fall colors, 37. YAR2ET, 38. sunspot 960, 39. Saturn and the Moon, 40. Feeding,

41. Macdologo, 42. Spring, 43. Venus and Moon, 44. Cloud perspective, 45. Crepuscular rays, 46. Orange sunset, 47. Sun Pillar, 48. Parhelion,

49. harvest2, 50. Sunspot 720 (January 2005), 51. San Marino, 52. Green, 53. sunset10, 54. Frost, 55. Sundog, 56. Sundog,

57. More than 32.000.000 views !!!, 58. Rainbow (?) on a CD, 59. Vibrato IV, 60. Seagull II, 61. Earthshine, 62. Infinite Wall, 63. A closer look to the Moon and Saturn, 64. Sunset Saucer,

65. Crepuscular rays, 66. Busy sky, 67. Subsun ?, 68. Sundog and beginning of parhelic arc, 69. IMG_4496, 70. Fühl’ ich mein Herz noch jenem Wahn geneigt?, 71. Untitled, 72. Moon and Venus conjunction

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

The neck heel of my 1987 Fender Precision Bass (Made in Japan). I bought it brand new in 1990 (it even smelled new!), but the serial number E769792 shows it (or at least the neck) was made between 1984 and 1987.

The bottom of the neck is stamped with “PB-557” (unlike the body's “PB-562”). I believe this designates it is a (late) 1957 re-issue neck. It has a 7.25" radius, the classic old-style tuners, and it's a nice thick neck.

I took the neck off tonight after truss rod adjustments failed to correct the noticeable bow in the neck.. Years and years of no adjustments has taken its toll. I've loosened the truss rod nut a bunch to let it relax for a bit for now. I think I have a plan to help straighten it though.. Gonna sleep on it a couple dozen nights before I do anything though.

16” Hollow Body with Sound Post Bracing

5 Ply Laminated Maple Arched Front & Back

5 Ply Laminated Maple Back & Sides

White Binding

3 Piece Maple “D” Profile Neck

"50's" Style Headstock

Bound Rosewood Fingerboard

Hump-Block Inlays

43mm Bone Nut

22 Medium Frets

24.6” Scale Length

Dovetail Neck Joint

Bound F Holes

Gold Pickguard

2 Chrome Blacktop FilterTron Pickups

Gold Pickup Bezels

Secured Rosewood Bridge Support

Chrome Adjust-o-matic Bridge

Grover Sta-Tite V97c Machine heads

Licensed Bigsby B60 Vibrato

Duane Eddy Aluminium Tremelo Arm

Homemade Trestle Bridge Support installed

3 Way Pickup Selector Switch

2 Volume, Master Tone & Master Volume

Chrome G-Arrow Knobs

Treble Bleed Mod

Les Paul Style Jack Socket Plate

RISING ROOTS PHENOM ‘SAMANTHA FISH’ UNVEILS “KILL OR BE KIND”

Rounder Records Debut Slated for Worldwide Release on August 30, 2019

Single "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" Available Now

UK & European began in Newcastle on Tuesday May 7th

Listen on Demand to Samantha’s Live Performance on BBC Radio 2's

The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews on May 6

on BBC iPlayer

Genre-bending guitarist, singer, and songwriter Samantha Fish will release Kill Or Be Kind on August 30, 2019. A two-song single from the album featuring "Watch It Die" and "Love Letters" was released today.

"Watch It Die" reveals Fish's prodigious gifts as a commanding vocalist and her sublime guitar technique, while the smouldering "Love Letters," is a fiery lament about love gone wrong that slowly builds to a searing bridge and solo.

Listen to, and download the new single from rounder.lnk.to/SFWatchLetters

Fish's incendiary live performances have been mesmerizing audiences all over the globe. Now, with Kill Or Be Kind, Fish is poised for a major breakthrough. The edgy roots music album was recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis and produced by three-time Grammy winner Scott Billington and mixed by two-time Grammy winner Steve Reynolds. Boasting 11 original songs ranging from the electric cigar box stomp of "Bulletproof" to the sweet Memphis R&B of "Trying Not To Fall in Love With You," the album is sure to establish Fish as a potent force in roots music.

The Kansas City-born-and-bred musician flirts with tradition but pushes genre boundaries to create a sound that's distinctly her own: "She Don't Live Here Anymore," co-written by Parker Millsap, features a Memphis soul underpinning with a sustained vibrato guitar sound that edges toward country. "Love Your Lies" persuasively straddles punk, rockabilly, and soul; while "You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)" is a classic blues rocker, thick with layered guitars and a cigar box solo. She shows off her range with the sweetly wistful "Dream Girl" and the cathartic, blues-saturated "Farewell My Fair Weather."

On May 6, Samantha kicked off her tour of UK and Europe with a live performance and interview on BBC Radio 2's highly-rated and influential The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews.

If you missed it, you can now listen to it on demand via BBC iPlayer via this link - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b25mg0/episodes/player

In June, she will start a tour of the US that includes stops at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, San Francisco's Fillmore, and the Troubadour in West Hollywood. More dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Love Letters

Samantha Fish / Jim McCormick

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Rhodes and Hammond B3 organ

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Watch It Die

Samantha Fish / Patrick Sweany

Samantha Fish, vocals and guitars

Austin Clements, bass

Rick Steff, Hammond B3 organ

Andriu Yanovski, Moog synthesizer

Doug Belote drums

Jim Spake, tenor and baritone saxophones

Tom Clary, trumpet

Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph and Kayla Jasmine, backing vocals

UK And European Tour Dates:

Tickets – www.samanthafish.com

5/07/19 Sage 2 Gateshead

5/08/19 Milton Keynes The Stables

5/09/19 Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms (Sold Out)

5/10/19 Glasgow Òran Mór (Sold Out)

5/11/19 Birmingham O2 Academy Birmingham

5/12/19 Bristol Thekla (Sold Out)

5/13/19 Cambridge Cambridge Junction

5/14/19 Manchester Band on the Wall (Sold Out)

5/16/19 London The Garage

5/17/19 Brighton The Haunt

5/18/19 Oxford O2 Academy

5/19/19 Southampton The Brook

5/21/19 Paris Le Flow

5/22/19 Brussels AB Club

5/23/19 Amsterdam Q Factory

5/24/19 Hamburg Fabrik

5/25/19 Dortmund Piano

5/26/19 Nurnberg Hirsch

5/27/19 Munich Strom

5/28/19 Zurich Kaufleutenv

5/30/19 Milan Legend Club

I'm looking after the Tour Management for this run of dates, so if anyone is thinking of coming to any of these shows, come and say hello at the Merch Table after the show.

Genre-bending guitarist, singer, and songwriter Samantha Fish will release her new studio album Kill Or Be Kind on Friday 20th September 2019 on Rounder Records and distributed in the UK by Proper Music.

Fish's incendiary live performances have been mesmerizing audiences all over the globe. Now, with Kill Or Be Kind, Fish is poised for a major breakthrough. The edgy roots music album was recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis and produced by three-time Grammy winner Scott Billington and mixed by two-time Grammy winner Steve Reynolds. Boasting 11 original songs ranging from the electric cigar box stomp of "Bulletproof" to the sweet Memphis R&B of "Trying Not To Fall in Love With You", the album is sure to establish Fish as a potent force in roots music.

The Kansas City-born-and-bred musician flirts with tradition but pushes genre boundaries to create a sound that's distinctly her own: "She Don't Live Here Anymore", co-written by Parker Millsap, features a Memphis soul underpinning with a sustained vibrato guitar sound that edges toward country. "Love Your Lies" persuasively straddles punk, rockabilly, and soul; while "You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)" is a classic blues rocker, thick with layered guitars and a cigar box solo. She shows off her range with the sweetly wistful "Dream Girl" and the cathartic, blues saturated "Farewell My Fair Weather".

“That was my mission on this album: To really set these songs up so that they have a life of their own,” says Samantha Fish about Kill or Be Kind, her sixth solo album and her debut on Rounder Records. “Strong messages from the heart – that’s what I really set out for.” Indeed, what comes across immediately on hearing the album is the extraordinary level of songcraft on its eleven tracks, the way these songs are so smartly put together to deliver a potent emotional impact.

Anyone who has ever heard Fish’s previous albums knows that she has earned a place in the top rank of contemporary blues guitarists and that her voice can wring the soul out of a ballad and belt out a rocker with roof-shaking force. And, rest reassured, those virtues are fully in evidence on Kill or Be Kind. But each of the songs on the album does far more than simply provide a setting for Fish’s pyrotechnics. They tell captivating stories, set up by verses that deftly set the scene, choruses that lift with real feeling, and hooks that later rise up in your thoughts, even when you’re not aware that you’re thinking of music at all. It’s the kind of songwriting that emerges when raw talent is leavened by experience and aspiration, and when a committed artist genuinely has something to say. Those qualities make Kill or Be Kind a genuine artistic breakthrough for Fish.

“I think I’ve grown as a performer and as a player,” she explains. “I’ve become more respectful of the melody. You can go up and down the fret board and up and down your vocal register, but that’s not going to be as powerful as conveying a simple melody that people can really connect to and sing themselves.”

To help bring those elements to her music, Fish sought out high-quality songwriting collaborators – the likes of Jim McCormick (who has worked with Fish before and also written for Luke Bryan and Keith Urban); Kate Pearlman (who has worked with Kelly Clarkson); Patrick Sweeney; Parker Millsap; and Eric McFadden. The result is an album on which each song is distinct, but the complete work hangs together as a coherent, entirely satisfying statement. “When you get to this point in your life as an artist,” Fish says, “it’s good to work with others, because it makes you stretch. I think you hear a lot of that nuance on the record, songs that have a pop sensibility to them, hooks that really pull you in.”

To make Kill or Be Kind, Fish chose to work at the legendary Royal Studios in Memphis, with Scott Billington as producer. “I worked at Royal before, when I made my Wild Heart album,” she says. “The soul in the walls, the vibe – you can feel it in that place. I’m such a fan of Al Green, Ann Peebles and all the classic recordings that happened there. Memphis just kept calling to me. I’ve always felt so inspired there.” As for Billington, a three-time Grammy winner, Fish appreciated both his open-mindedness and his willingness to ease her out of her comfort zone. “Scott allowed me to see the building-out process of the album all the way through, from the top to the bottom,” she says. “Bringing in background singers and synthesizers, which I’d never done on an album before, that added an extra edge. Honestly, it was a challenge. It pushed me to think about the songs differently. That trust from my producer gave me the freedom to really take some risks.”

Kill or Be Kind – Track listing

1.Bulletproof (05:19)

2.Kill or Be Kind (03:45)

3.Love Letters (03:38)

4.Watch it Die (05:00)

5.Try Not to Fall in Love with You (04:04)

6.Fair-Weather (04:12)

7.Love Your Lies (02:47)

8.Dream Girl (04:14)

9.She Don’t Live Around Here (05:45)

10.Dirty (03:27)

11.You Got It Bad (03:21)

Kill or Be Kind

Track by Track by Samantha Fish

You get a good sense of the range the album covers from the first two songs released. Fish propels “Watch It Die” with an insistent guitar riff, but near the song’s end two female background singers lend the song a haunting soulful feel.

Meanwhile, “Love Letters” moves on an insinuating, stop-time riff in its verses until it bursts in passion on its chorus. Both songs use horn sections for finesse and texture. “Love Letters” also introduces one of the album’s central themes: the allure of losing yourself in love – and the dangers of it. “Keep waking up in the bed I made,” Fish sings. “Forget the pain when you wanna play/I’m back to broken when you go away.”

“That’s just a love-sick song,” Fish says, laughing. “like I think I was when I wrote it. ” The title track “Kill or Be Kind”, a seductive ballad, offers a lover a stark choice: “Make up your mind/I can kill or be kind.” To explain that dichotomy, Fish says, “It’s funny how love can be so fickle, how quickly you go from object of affection to one of disdain. I’ve always found that dynamic interesting. That track is full of that duality.”

“I also love the Memphis sound of the horns on there. They sound modern, but it’s got this vintage feeling as well.”

The songs “Dirty,” “Love Your Lies” and “Fair-Weather” explore similar themes – how deceit, self-deception and shifting expectations can alter the course of life and love.

The affecting ballad “Dream Girl” stands the endearment of its title on its head and explores the dilemma of a love not coming to fruition. “I wish you’d take the rest of me,” Fish sings. “These tears, they kill your fantasy.”

On “She Don’t Live Around Here Anymore,” a soul ballad once again bolstered by tasteful horn parts, the singer confronts the feeling of being used and finds empowerment in walking away.

The album is framed by songs -- “Bulletproof” and “You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)”.

“Bulletproof” digs into the theme of vulnerability, about it being mistaken for weakness, and how we often times feel the need to wear a mask to survive in the world today, while “You Got It Bad (Better Than You Ever Had)” is about working towards your dreams and the knifes edge we often walk to reach our goals.

“Trying Not to Fall in Love With You” finds the singer not wanting to rush a relationship – and therefore undermine it. “I fall fast,” Fish admits, “I have to remember to take care and not scare the person away.”

SAMANTHA FISH – BIOGRAPHY

After launching her recording career in 2009, Samantha Fish quickly established herself as a rising star in the contemporary blues world. Since then, the charismatic young singer-guitarist-songwriter has earned a reputation as a rising guitar hero and powerful live performer, while releasing a series of acclaimed albums that have shown her restless creative spirit consistently taking her in new and exciting musical directions.

The New York Times called Fish “an impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power” and “one of the genre’s most promising young talents.” Her hometown paper The Kansas City Star noted, “Samantha Fish has kicked down the door of the patriarchal blues club” and observed that the young artist “displays more imagination and creativity than some blues veterans exhibit over the course of their careers.”

Black Wind Howlin’ (2013) and Wild Heart (2015) followed, winning considerable critical acclaim and further establishing Fish as a prominent presence in the blues community. Wild Heart reached the top slot on Billboard’s blues chart. She also collaborated with blues-rock veterans Jimmy Hall and Reese Wynans on the 2013 project The Healers. The same year, she jammed onstage with blues icon Buddy Guy, and guested on Devon Allman’s album Turquoise.

Having already made it clear that she’s more interested in following her heart than she is in repeating past triumphs, Samantha Fish delivered some of her most compelling music to date with Belle of the West, her fifth studio album. The deeply soulful, personally charged 11-song set showcases Fish’s sublime acoustic guitar skills as well as her rootsy, emotionally resonant song writing.

Belle of the West followed on the heels of Fish’s March 2017 release Chills & Fever, which achieved top 10 status in the Billboard Blues charts. Here she expanded her stylistic arsenal to take on a set of lesser-known vintage R&B gems, with help from members of garage-soul stalwarts the Detroit Cobras. “Having these two very different records come out back to back that year has been really liberating,” says Samantha.

The creative drive that fuels Belle of the West and Chills & Fever has been a crucial element of Samantha Fish’s approach from the beginning. Growing up in a musical family in Kansas City, Missouri, she became obsessed with music early life, taking up drums before switching to guitar at the age of 15. By the time she was 20, she had formed her own trio and self-released her first album. She soon caught the ear of the renowned blues label Ruf Records, which in 2011 released Girls with Guitars, which teamed her with fellow axewomen Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde. The same year saw Ruf release Fish’s solo studio debut Runaway. The album was named Best Artist Debut at the 2012 Blues Music Awards in Memphis.

Fish continues to maintain the same hardworking, prolific approach that’s carried her this far. “I think I’ve always had that,” she says. “Music is my life, so what other choice do I have but to go out and make music? We do tour quite a bit, and maybe it’s kind of crazy to put out two dramatically different albums in one year. But I like to work hard. This is who I am, and this is what I do, and when I’m writing and recording and touring is when I feel the most like myself. And now we have a moment where people are paying attention, so I have to make the most of it. I feel like I have a lot to say right now, so why not say it?”

As far as Samantha Fish is concerned, her musical future is an open road. “I’m never gonna be a traditional blues artist, because that’s not who I am,” she asserts. “But it’s all the blues for me. When Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf came out, what they were doing didn’t sound like anything that had been done in blues before. You’ve gotta keep that kind of fire and spirit. I’m never gonna do Muddy Waters better than Muddy Waters, so I have to be who I am and find my best voice. Her new studio album Kill Or Be Kind will be released on Friday 20th September by Rounder Records.

One of Gene's customers dropped this '64 SG Standard off the other day. This poor guy has been stripped of most of its original parts and refinished. Not a horrible job but it doesn't look quite right.

This guitar sounds very Buxton-ish through the Bluesbreaker reissue. The tube rectification makes for a cool drag, sag or whatever you want to call it. I just call it kick ass!

We removed the teachers control rail and installed a wood panel and cut F holes into the rail.

www.vintagevibe.com

French postcard by Editions Lyna, Paris, no. 2090. Photo: Michel Ginfray / Gamma.

Though sometimes dismissed in France as little more than a 'chanteur de charme' ('a ladies' singer') Julien Clerc (1947) in fact enjoyed one of the most successful and longest-lived careers in contemporary French pop. He shaped the nouvelle chanson aesthetic across a span of decades that began in the shadow of the student rebellions of 1968 with the hit 'La Cavalerie' and continued well into the following century with such evergreens as 'Si on Chantait' and 'This Melody'.

Julien Clerc was born Paul-Alain Auguste Leclerc in 1947 in Paris. He was the son of Paul Leclerc, a senior UNESCO official, and Évelyne Merlot. His parents divorced in 1949. While his father preferred classical music, his mother, who came from the French Antilles island of Guadeloupe, introduced him to the music of singers such as Georges Brassens and Édith Piaf. Ghislaine, his father's second wife, a harpsichordist, introduced him to the piano. Leclerc started playing the piano at the age of six. During his time at secondary school, he met Maurice Vallet, and they began writing songs. Encouraged by his father, he enrolled in law school at the Sorbonne, but spent more time in the cafés in front of the university, particularly at L'Écritoire. It was there, in 1966, that he met Étienne Roda-Gil, a dandy poet and son of a Spanish revolutionary, who would become his alter ego and official lyricist. Roda-Gil wrote the lyrics for most of Leclerc's compositions until 1980 and again from 1992 onwards. Leclerc adopted the stage name Julien Clerc and signed a contract with the Pathé-Marconi label. In May 1968, he released his first album, which won the Académie Charles Cros Record Award. His first single was 'La cavalerie', which opened a new chapter in the history of French chanson. The verses written by Roda Gil and Clerc's contemporary hippie look, with his long black curls, resonated strongly with young audiences in Paris in May 1968. RFI: "Julien Clerc's neo-symphonic music and Vallet and Roda-Gil's almost dreamlike lyrics were well suited to this period of change. These songs were welcomed as a revival of traditional French chanson, and their highly harmonic style was quite unusual at the time, especially in France. In addition, Julien Clerc's voice, characterised by its famous vibrato, allowed the singer to stand out from the very beginning." In 1969, Clerc performed at the Olympia for the first time as the opening act for a Gilbert Bécaud concert. Despite having only been active in music for a year, the performance was a great success. He would later return to the Olympia repeatedly for a series of concerts.

From May 1969 to February 1970, Julien Clerc starred as Claude Bukowski in the highly successful Paris production of the musical 'Hair'. This show greatly increased his popularity in France. That year, the press wrote about his relationship with singer France Gall, which would last four years. At the age of 24, Julien Clerc was already a big star. After three LPs, 'Yann et les dauphins' (1968), 'Des jours entiers à t’aimer' (1970) and 'Niagara' (1971), he received his first gold record in 1972 for his next studio album, 'Liberté égalité ou la mort'. Each of his albums in the 1970s, which were released at roughly yearly intervals, also went gold. In Europe, he had numerous hits, such as 'Hélène', 'Si on chantait', 'Elle voulait qu'on l'appelle Venise', 'Ce n'est rien' and 'This melody'. Lyricist Etienne Roda-Gil was responsible for his greatest successes. Clerc also tried his hand at acting. He starred in Claude Goretta's TV film Le temps d'un portrait / Time for a Portrait (1971). During the filming of D'amour et d'eau fraîche / Love and Cool Water (Jean-Pierre Blanc, 1976), he met the young actress Miou-Miou. In the film, they played the leading roles as a young couple in love. During the shooting of the film, Patrick Dewaere - Miou Miou's husband at the time -violently interfered with Julien Clerc, who seduced her. It was too late. Miou-Miou would be Clerc's partner until 1981. He appeared with Georges Brassens and Françoise Hardy in Philippe Chatel's children's TV musical Emilie Jolie (Jean-Christophe Averty, 1980) and sang the title song. He also participated in '36 Front Populaire', a double album about the turbulent Popular Front period.

In 1982, Julien Clerc achieved platinum status with 'Femmes indiscrétion et blasphème'. Four more platinum records followed until 1990. Clerc experimented with other musical styles, for example, on the album 'Cœur de rocker'. After a temporary separation from his favourite author, Roda-Gil, he returned to his former chanson style after a short time. Clerc accompanied himself on the grand piano in many of his songs. Over the years, Clerc's repertoire varied from his own compositions to classic French songs such as 'Comme ici' by Georges Brassens and L'hymne à l'amour by Édith Piaf. He performed in Africa, America and Europe. In 2008, the album Où s'en vont les avions? was released. In 2009, Clerc celebrated his 40th anniversary as an artist. Julien Clerc has been a member of Les Enfoirés for several years, a changing group of French artists who support Les Restos du Cœur, an organisation that helps the homeless. In early 2019, he appeared as a coach on the French version of The Voice. In November 2019, the duet album 'Duos' was released, on which Clerc sings duets with Carla Bruni, Francis Cabrel, Calogero and Zaz, among others. Christophe Maé, Sandrine Kiberlain and Soprano also sing on the album. Clerc has five children: daughters Angèle (adopted) and Jeanne Herry with French actress Miou-Miou; daughter Vanille and son Barnabé with then-wife Virginie Coupérie, and son Léonard with journalist and screenwriter Hélène Grémillon, whom he married in 2012.

Sources: AllMusic, RFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Swimsuit: Sahy - Amarelo Manga (group gift in store)

Hair: Vibrato - Lelutka

Lipstick: Elemiah Design (Kiyomizu summer treasure hunt's prize)

Eyes: Summer sky - A.G.

Skin: Emma - Essences (old group gift)

Body, hands, feet: The mesh project - Theshops (group gift)

Location: Baja Norte maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Baja%20Norte/181/148/22/?t....

A statue of the Bee Gees by sculptor Andy Edwards was unveiled in Douglas, Isle of Man, in 2021. It is located on Loch Promenade between Marine Gardens 1 and 2 and opposite Regent Street. The 7-foot (2.1 m) bronze sculptures depict Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, and the artist was inspired by the group's music video for "Stayin' Alive". The £170,000 project was commissioned in 2019.

The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb born on the Isle of Man to English parents. The trio were especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies: Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The group wrote all their own original material, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists, and are regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop-music history. They have been referred to in the media as The Disco Kings, Britain's First Family of Harmony, and The Kings of Dance Music.

Aluminum neck shims for the Bigsby B-16 Vibrato. tksmith.net/

German postcard by Benedikt Taschen Verlag G.m.b.H., Köln, 1997. Photo: William Claxton. Caption: Miles Davis, Hollywood, 1957, from the book 'William Claxton's Jazz Photography'.

American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991) was one of the most important and influential jazz musicians in history. Davis played various styles, including bop, cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz-rock fusion. His style is recognisable and original and continues to influence jazz musicians decades after his death. His music for Louis Malle's Nouvelle Vague classic Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (1957) is one of the greatest Jazz soundtracks in cinema history.

Miles Dewey Davis III was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1926. Davis was the son of a dental surgeon, Dr. Miles Dewey Davis, Jr., and a music teacher, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis. He grew up in the Black middle class of East St. Louis after the family moved there shortly after his birth. His mother wanted him to learn to play the violin. Instead, his father gave him a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday, which he devoted himself to from then on. The family owned a ranch, where young Miles learned to ride horses. When Davis was 15, he played for audiences with bandleader Eddie Randall and studied under trumpeter Elwood Buchanan. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan emphasised the importance of playing without vibrato. Davis retained this distinctive, clear tone throughout his career. William Ruhlmann at AllMusic: "At 17, he joined Eddie Randle's Blue Devils, a territory band based in St. Louis. He enjoyed a personal apotheosis in 1944, just after graduating from high school, when he saw and was allowed to sit in with Billy Eckstine's big band, which was playing in St. Louis. The band featured trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker, the architects of the emerging bebop style of jazz, which was characterised by fast, inventive soloing and dynamic rhythm variations." In 1945, Davis moved to New York, ostensibly to study at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (renamed Juilliard) on a scholarship. In reality, he neglected his education and went in search of his heroes, such as Thelonious Monk and Coleman Hawkins. He regularly went out with Dizzy Gillespie, and they became good friends. By 1949, he had fulfilled his 'probation' as a fellow player, both on stage and on recordings. His own recording career subsequently flourished. That same year, Davis began collaborating with Gil Evans. This collaboration continued over the next 20 years for many of his major works. The records they made in the late 1940s were released on a limited basis for the first decade. Through New York's jazz clubs, Davis regularly came into contact with both users and sellers of illegal drugs. By 1950, he had a serious heroin addiction, possibly exacerbated by the lacklustre reception of his first personal recordings. In the first part of the 1950s, the talent Davis possessed seemed to be lost. He played several gigs, but these were uninspired. Aware of this, Davis returned to East Saint Louis in 1954, where he tried to kick the habit with the help of his father. The latter mistakenly thought it had to do with his teeth. Davis closed himself off from society until he was free of his drug addiction. By 1954, he had overcome his heroin addiction, although he continued to use cocaine, among other things. Reborn, he returned to New York and founded the first major version of the Miles Davis Quintet. This band included the young John Coltrane and occasionally some other jazz artists known at the time, such as Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus. Musically, the group continued where Davis left off in his sessions in the late 1940s. They avoided the rhythmic and harmonic complexity of the dominant bebop, and Davis was given the space to play long, legato and essentially melodic lines, in which he learned to make sense of modal music. This was a lifelong obsession for him.

In February 1957, Capitol finally issued the 1949 recordings, together on an LP called 'Birth of the Cool'. He also recorded 'Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet'. These albums defined the sound of cool jazz, one of the dominant trends in music for the next decade and beyond. In December 1957, Miles Davis returned to Paris, where he improvised the background music for the film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud / Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1957) with Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet. Davis recorded the music in a single recording session while he watched a screening. He composed it while watching a rough cut and then invited a quartet of French and US musicians in from 11 pm to 5 am one night, improvising each number and allegedly sipping champagne with Jeanne Moreau and Louis Malle. Claudio Carvalho at IMDb: "The soundtrack with the music of Miles Davis gives a touch of class to this little masterpiece. The result is one of the best thrillers entwined with comedy of errors that I have ever seen." While the rest of the music establishment was still trying to accept Miles Davis' innovations, he himself was further along. Reunited with Gil Evans, he recorded a series of albums of great variety and complexity, demonstrating his mastery of his instrument in almost every musical context. On the first album, 'Miles Ahead' (1957), he played with a traditional jazz big band. This had a driven brass section arranged by Gil Evans. In addition to jazz numbers (including Dave Brubeck's 'The Duke'), the two took on Léo Delibes' 'Les Filles de Cadix'. This was the first time Davis recorded European classical music. 'Milestones' (1958) captured the sound of his current sextet, which now consisted of Davis, John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (alto sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Musically, this album encompassed both the past and future of jazz. Davis showed he could play blues and bebop (accompanied by Garland), but the centrepiece is the title track, a composition by Davis around the Dorian and Aeolian modes and with the free improvisational modal style Davis made his own. This modal style flourished on 'Kind of Blue' (1959), an album that became a landmark in modern jazz and the most popular album of Davis' career. It eventually sold over two million copies, a phenomenal success for a jazz record. The sextet improvised on short modal themes that had not been rehearsed beforehand. In the group, Bill Evans took over the piano, bringing classical influences to the group. On one of the tracks, Wynton Kelly played piano. He later became a permanent member of the group. After 'Kind of Blue', the group broke up. Coltrane, Evans and Adderley continued as bandleaders. Miles Davis found less inspiration, and his group changed line-ups regularly.

In 1964, Miles Davis formed his second major quintet. Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Ron Carter on bass and the still young Tony Williams on drums. Davis stated, "You have to know the rules first to then be able to break them." Jazz standards were played live, pushing the boundaries of tradition. Long improvisations with much emphasis on harmonic boundaries and tight group playing allowed him to play with texture more than before. Live, he played standards and in the studio new work, especially compositions by his saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The limits were reached on 'Live at Plugged Nickel'. It formed a counterpoint to the free jazz of Ornette Coleman, whom Davis reviled in his autobiography. In June 1970, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and John McLaughlin, among others, met for four nights at the modest nightclub The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. A six-song CD of those performances was released in 2006. In the late 1960s, Davis went electric with an electric piano, electric bass and an electric guitar. The 'groove' became important. After Davis heard 'Machine Gun' by Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival, Davis immediately wanted to start a band with him. "It's that goddamned motherfucking 'Machine Gun'," Miles replied when asked what he thought of Hendrix's music. Due to Hendrix's death, it never took place. In the 1970s, he tried to reach black youth by putting funk influences in his music. As heard on the revolutionary album 'On The Corner'. 'Bitches Brew' (1970) became a landmark for emerging jazz fusion music. In late 1975, Davis withdrew from music and no longer wanted to play the trumpet. He again struggled with addiction, this time to cocaine and alcohol. Poor health, partly caused by years of excessive drug use, led to a radio silence of almost six years. Miles Davis returned to music anyway. His style changed more to a pop style. He recorded new, intriguing albums such as electronic-driven Tutu or Amandla, as well as Spanish-flavoured music for the film Siesta (Mary Lambert, 1987) with Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne. Miles Davis died in Santa Monica, California, in 1991. He was 65. Already in a coma, he died of pneumonia following a severe stroke and was buried next to Duke Ellington at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. Davis was married to Frances Taylor (1958-1968), Betty Mabry (1968-1969) and actress Cicely Tyson (1981-1988). He had four children: Cheryl (1944), Gregory (1946), Miles IV (1950) and Erin (1970). Twenty-four years after Davis' death, he was the subject of Miles Ahead (2015), a biopic co-written and directed by Don Cheadle, who also portrayed him. Its soundtrack functioned as a career overview with additional music provided by pianist Robert Glasper and associates. In 2020, the trumpeter was also the focus of director Stanley Nelson's documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which showcased music from throughout Davis' career.

Sources: William Ruhlmann (AllMusic), Piotr Strzyzowski (IMDb), Claudio Carvalho (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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Veena, one of the most ancient string instruments, is a plucked stringed instrument used mostly in Carnatic Indian classical music.

In the picture is the Saraswati Veena [7 strings and 24 frets] which occupies the first place among them all. It can produce any musical sound perfectly corresponding with the musical ideas of the player. It could range from thunderous vibrato to very subtle pianissimo nuances.

All the fine arts of our country are not meant for just worldly pleasures or gains. They are the path ways to liberation or Moksha which is the ultimate goal of every human being.

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>> Must be Viewed Large On Black <<

CONCERTRECENSIE Philip Catherine, Paulo Morello & Sven Faller, TivoliVredenburg, Grote Zaal, Utrecht, 13 juni 2021

door: Cyriel Pluimakers

Het is onomstreden dat de inmiddels 78-jarige, uit België afkomstige, Philip Catherine tot de grootste West-Europese gitaristen gerekend mag worden. Sinds de jaren zestig staat hij in de frontline en speelde hij met uiteenlopende grootheden als Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Stéphane Grappelli en Jasper van ’t Hof. Catherine beschikt over een unieke swingende en tegelijkertijd lyrische stijl. Zijn gitaartoon is buitengewoon zangerig, met steeds dat typerende tikkeltje vibrato: een geluid waar menige vakbroeder van kan dromen.

Philip Catherine met gitarist Paulo Morello en contrabassist Sven Faller op het podium van TivoliVredenburg.

Grote zaal

Twee jaar geleden maakte Catherine met gitarist Paulo Morello en contrabassist Sven Faller het prachtige album ‘Manoir De Mes Rêves’ (Enja), een productie waar op vanzelfsprekende wijze gypsy jazz, Franse chansons, Americana en standards met elkaar werden vermengd. Een echte tournee zat er tot voor kort niet in, maar nu het coronavirus steeds meer wordt teruggedrongen kunnen er weer sporadisch concerten worden gegeven. Het siert het Utrechtse TivoliVredenburg dat ze de grote zaal ter beschikking hebben gesteld voor een kleine en toegewijde club bezoekers die blij is om in een veilige anderhalve meter setting weer live te kunnen genieten van jazz. Nota bene op een avond dat het gros van Nederland plaats genomen heeft voor de televisie om naar Oranje te kunnen kijken.

Aarzeling

Het concert start met de opwekkende bossa nova ‘Recado’ van Dajlma Ferreira, gevolgd door het van Cole Porter afkomstige ‘Why Can’t You Behave’. Catherine maakt in zijn spel en aankondigingen een enigszins onzekere indruk: het is duidelijk dat de jaren zijn gaan tellen. Co-gitarist Morello pakt telkens alert het spoor op, waar Catherine gaten laat vallen. Ook voor contrabassist Faller is het spitsroeden lopen, want de bejaarde Catherine gaat nogal eens uit de pas. Telkens wanneer Morello de hoofdrol krijgt lijkt de machine iets beter te lopen, zoals in zijn eigen ‘Robert’s Waltz’. Met een lichte aarzeling zwoegt de leider zich door het van Django Reinhardt afkomstige ‘Insensiblement’ heen en zijn eigen ‘Pendulum’. Het trio sloot het concert af met de titeltrack van het album ‘Manoir De Mes Rêves’ dat in 2019 verscheen.

Toegift

Tijdens een onzekere uitvoering van ‘Noches Cariocas’ lijkt Catherine de weg even kwijt. Een klein herstel tekent zich af in het emotionele ‘Lover Man’ en het door chansonnier Georges Brassens geschreven’ Les Amoureux Des Bancs Publics’. Ook ‘Pourquoi’, een hommage aan George Shearing, wordt voorzien van voldoende lading. Een onverwacht dieptepunt vormt het slordig gespeelde ‘Bluesette’, de klassieker van ‘Toots’. Krachtig is het aan Morello’s vrouw opgedragen ‘Claudia’s Delight’, met de co-gitarist in topvorm. Ondanks alle tegenvallers reageert het publiek enthousiast, al was het maar om weer eens bij een concert met musici van vlees en bloed aanwezig te zijn. Als toegift speelt het trio de titeltrack van het album ‘Manoir De Mes Rêves’. Toch nog een geslaagde afsluiter van een muzikaal matige avond!

philipcatherine.com