New favorite internet discovery: Douglas Wolk’s Mincing Up the Morning, which he describes as “a daily blog where I post a couple of videos by musicians whose birthday is that day.” The duet between David Bowie and Cher is indescribable–must be seen to be believed. (Thanks, Anne.)
Here’s a link to my review of Caryl Flinn’s biography of Ethel Merman in Newsday. [pdf version here]
Ethel Merman on “The Love Boat,” with Ann Miller, Carol Channing, and Della Reese. Click through for Merman and the Muppets.
I remember watching Celine Dion perform Phil Spector’s “River Deep, Mountain High” on MTV’s first Divas Live extravaganza in 1998. I was full of contempt at the time, having endured a roommate’s long-running obsession with “My Heart Will Go On.” But then Celine took the stage. She wore a dark duster as though she were […]
“One of the most ingenious, inspired and impressively stubborn sons-of-a-bitch the music industry ever saw”
That’s from Lee Hazlewood’s obituary on myspace. Hazlewood died Saturday in Las Vegas, but right now in the lefthand corner of his website, the little orange figure is blinking away: “Online Now!”
Hazlewood probably would’ve enjoyed the absurdity. He titled his […]
I suppose it was bound to happen.
Last night, in Evergreen Video on Carmine St., I eavesdropped on another customer’s conversation, and then asked the clerk to confirm what I’d just heard, which was that my favorite video store was closing on June 30.
“Is it Netflix?” I asked, feeling remorse for having joined.
He shook his […]
This was tagged on Youtube under “Sports,” but it’s really a category of its own.
Why indeed? This clip is long, and yet I never want it to end.
See more of Brenda Bergman and the Bodacious Ta Tas on the Maury Povich show singing “To Sir, With Love,” circa 1995.
Jody Rosen testifies:
Gibb is an old-fashioned song craftsman—a composer of beautiful, harmonically sophisticated pop songs who would have held his own back in the 1930s with Gershwin and Kern and company. This is the funny thing about the Bee Gees disco-era apogee: They were playing dress-up, shamelessly bandwagon-hopping, writing the same great songs that they […]
Over at Feast of Fools, John Q. Sanchez patrols the internet so you don’t have to. Check out the video bounty of Tasty Zine. Here’s a sample:
Debbie Harry and the Muppets
Betty Hutton was considered “a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm,” but here’s a clip of the late chanteuse at a much different register:
For more characteristic mania, see Betty with Dinah Shore.
Betty Hutton, Film Star of ’40s and ’50s, Dies at 86 (NY Times)