Monthly Archives: July 2009
Biography and music
One of my recurring frustrations with entertainment biographies is overdocumentation. Concert dates, recording sessions, studio memos pile up as if the profusion of unmediated data will ultimately transmit a deeper understanding of the performer. Usually, though, all that minutiae just ends up obscuring the subject. That you learn a singer took a fifteen-minute break during [...]
Posted in Literary, Music Tagged biography, Female performers, Jenny Diski, Literary, LRB, Music, Nina Simone, Rolling Stones, Sway, Zachary Lazar Leave a comment
More Michael Jackson
The other day Liza pointed out this passage in Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica: A car rolled up and got stopped in traffic in front of us. Music poured from the radio, carrying a voice that was all smooth and elegant, except burps and grunts kept popping out of it like a baby trying to talk. “She [...]
Posted in Literary, Music Tagged James Brown, Literary, Mary Gaitskill, Michael Jackson, Music Leave a comment
Love and theft
Since reading Susie Boyt’s memoir, I’ve been thinking a lot about Judy Garland and Michael Jackson–as have others–and I found this clip on YouTube. It’s Michael Jackson doing Fred Astaire’s moves while singing “Get Happy,” one of Judy Garland’s signature songs, and it’s totally riveting. The melody is so decidedly hers, but the voice is [...]
Memoir and music
Forty years ago a massively popular performer died from a drug overdose. Judy Garland was 47 at the time. Her fan base was enormous. Some 20,000 people lined up to view her body at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue. Susie Boyt, who was born a few months before Garland’s death, has [...]
Posted in Literary, Music Tagged criticism, Judy Garland, Literary, Michael Jackson, writing Leave a comment
Baedaker goes to the movies