On May 26, 1897, Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula went on sale in London bookshops. The vampire book would eventually spawn many versions in other media as well as other stories about the Count from Transylvania.
The novel originally only achieved moderate sales, so that Stoker’s obituary in 1912 did not even mentioned the name of the novel Dracula. But a Broadway production in the 1920s started boosting sales of the book. And the real breakthrough came with Universal’s 1931 film that starred Bela Lugosi and was directed by Tod Browning.
A Taste for Love
Many other TV and movie versions followed. Although one of my favorite versions only appeared in part in the excellent comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008).
In that movie, the character Peter Bretter — played by the film’s writer Jason Segal — is working on a puppet play about Dracula. Below, Mila Kunis encourages him to perform one of the play’s songs, “Dracula’s Lament.”
We never see the whole play, entitled A Taste for Love. But at the end of the film we get a good taste of it, which only makes us wish Segal would film the whole thing in a new movie.
The music is surprisingly wonderful, the puppets created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop are brilliant, and actor Bill Hader adds a nice touch. Check it out.
Segel has explained that he really did work on creating the Dracula puppet musical to be its own production. But with help from director Judd Apatow, he concluded it worked better as a segment in another movie rather than as a production all its own. Too bad, but at least we got to see some of it in the very funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
I wonder what Bram Stoker would think?
Photo of Bela Lugosi as Dracula via public domain. Leave your two cents in the comments.
The following is a Guest Post by Brad Risinger, reporting on the James Taylor concert in Greensboro, North Carolina on May 18, 2018.
James Taylor has told interviewers that he was “clinically nervous” in 1968 when he played an audition for Paul McCartney and George Harrison for The Beatles’ new record label, Apple. Returning to his North Carolina roots for a May 18 show at the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina, he just chuckled introducing the song he played for Sir Paul: “Something in the Way She Moves.” “I wish I could remember it,” he said of the Apple session, “but I’m told I had a good time.”
Playing a show so close to his beginnings in Chapel Hill – where a bridge south of town bears his name – any gaps in his memory are readily forgiven by an aging, but adoring, crowd. At 70, Taylor’s voice remains as soothing as a soft blanket on a cool morning. His longtime backing vocalists – centered around the charismatic Arnold McCuller – may cover small corners of his range that now elude him. But their interlaced voices are so familiar and compatible that it is hard to think about them without each other.
This tour is unabashedly fueled by memory as much as it is music. It was intended as a summer barnstormer with his old pal, Bonnie Raitt. But illness forced her to back out of at least its early dates.
The homey digital graphics package that accompanied most songs featured photos scattered across his more than 50-year career, both phases of his family life and his many band mates. He signed autographs for most of the intermission at the corner of the stage. And he was tugged back for the second set seeming to enjoy the interaction almost as much as his fans.
Stars, of course, play their catalogues. And two robust sets got to most of Taylor’s critical and fan high-water marks. The applause for “Fire and Rain” in the middle of the second set was so sustained my daughter asked if the show was ending. But in a knowing nod to a loyal fan base, the tour of his discography is reminiscent but not reverent.
James Taylor is comfortable with the chronology of a decades-long career, but won’t be the pop star who plays the same show he offered 30 years ago. He will give you what he has, from where he is, understanding where he and his fans have been together.
He confides that “the old jokes are best, told over and over again.” He never fails to tell the story of his nephew James, and the “cowboy lullaby” he wrote for him driving south to see him for the first time (“Sweet Baby James”). But he’ll also offer differing arrangements that feature many of his stalwarts who share the stage, and truncated versions of classics like “Steamroller” that would seem out of place in their old, extended forms. Even a shortish “Steamroller” in Greensboro caused a slightly winded Taylor to offer “that got a little out of hand.”
At a time when the country is foundering to find its way, Taylor has never been shy about his belief that music, and love, work hand in hand to show a path forward. Back in politically purple North Carolina, he uttered not a word of the socially conscious politics that have defined much of his public life. Instead, he offered what he always has in his lyrics: something to hang onto, for each listener in her own way.
He introduced “Jump Up Behind Me” as a song about getting out of New York in the 1960s when his early band, “The Flying Machine,” had flown apart. He called his father, who sensed the moment, and told him not to move and drove to get him in 12 hours. “I was in trouble,” Taylor recalled.
Taylor’s mellow, reflective folk rock has been so enduring in part for this ability to help listeners cope with what cards life deals you along the way. The Carole King mainstays in the show – “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Up on the Roof” – are hopeful and understanding. One of his best ‘80s songs, “Never Die Young,” is written from a bleaker viewpoint. The song counsels that sometimes we are only managing setbacks to get to a better place, as we “cut up our losses into doable doses, ration our tears and sighs.”
But 10,000 people singing “Shower the People” is at the core of the James Taylor experience. A background video board showed 100 or so video clips of Taylor’s friends and random fans singing along in little boxes that resembled the closing scene of the movie “Love Actually.” There are likely few large-scale tours left for Taylor. But it seems that Taylor, and his fans, are just fine with the legacy message of showing kindness to those around you. “Things are gonna be much better if you only will.”
Photo courtesy of Brad Risinger. Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of my favorite podcasts lately has been Cocaine & Rhinestones by Tyler Mahan Coe. In each episode, Coe delves deep into the history of country music in the twentieth century.
Episodes run anywhere between forty minutes and two hours, and each one may examine an artist’s career or may analyze the history behind a certain song, or both. For example, one two-part episode centered on the relationship between Buck Owens and his guitarist Don Rich. Another episode tells the story about how radio stations banned Loretta Lynn’s song, “The Pill.” Another episode focused on Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Bille Joe” while also giving a fascinating overview of Gentry’s career.
Coe does an outstanding job trying to tell the truth behind the stories behind country music. An avid reader, Coe delves into books that tell the stories, comparing versions of events so he can explain his best estimate of what really happened.
Coe’s goal of telling us what really happened is part of the reason why he does not use original interviews but wraps information together to tell us the stories. And at the end of each podcast, Coe also fills us in with “liner notes,” telling us a little more about his sources and other information that might not have fit in the main tale.
As you might guess from the title Cocaine & Rhinestones, Coe does not shy away from the darker legends of country music, such as the first episode about how Ernest Tubb once showed up in slippers to try to shoot someone.
But Coe is most interested in the music behind these artists. His podcasts feature excepts from important songs, and he often breaks them down to help you hear them in a new way.
Coe recently explained to The New Yorker how one of his radio inspirations is Paul Harvey, who hosted, among other shows, The Rest of the Story. I used to listen to those shows as a kid too, and I even bought books with written versions of Harvey’s episodes. So, I can hear the connection, mostly in the way that Coe tells a good story that keeps you entertained while you learn something new.
Tyler Mahan Coe’s background in country music goes back to his birth, as he is the son of country legend David Allan Coe and later played guitar in his dad’s band. Now, he lives in Nashville as he spreads the gospel of country music through the Internet.
So, check, out the episodes from the first season of Cocaine & Rhinestones at the show’s website. Find an artist or topic that interests you and start with that episode. One of my favorites was his take on The Louvin Brothers (Running Wild), which also inspired me to read one of the books Coe recommended.
Yet, part of the joy is learning about people you do not know and the way Coe ties together a number of country music characters throughout the episodes. So, yes, start with a song or artist you think you know already. But, like me, you probably will just give in and decide to go back and listen to all of the episodes of Cocaine & Rhinestones in order. And then you will wait anxiously for Season Two.
What is your favorite episode of Cocaine & Rhinestones? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Folk, blues, and jazz singer Barbara Dane was born in Detroit on May 12, 1927. Smithsonian Folkways recently released a retrospective of the singer and political activist who has worked with many musical giants of the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond.
In her long career, Dane performed and recorded with artists such as Louis Armstrong, Memphis Slim, Otis Spahn, Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Pete Seeger, Mose Allison, Big Mama Thornton, Lightnin’ Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, and many others. Below she sings with Louis Armstrong on the Timex All-Star Jazz Show, which was broadcast on CBS on January 7, 1959. Armstrong famously described Dane with the compliment, “She’s a gasser!”
She also made a wonderful album with The Chambers Brothers. Here, they perform “I am a Weary and Lonesome Traveler” from Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers.
A new album from Smithsonian Folkways collects a number of Dane’s recordings into a retrospective. Below is a promo for the two-CD retrospective, Hot Jazz, Cool Blues & Hard-Hitting Songs (2018).
More on Barbara Dane
Dane has had a long career with great music while also being active politically for such causes as the civil rights and anti-war movements. If you are unfamiliar with her work, her website is a good place to start. And another resource is the audio documentary, A Wild Woman Sings the Blues: The Life and Music of Barbara Dane.
Finally, fortunately for us, Dane continues to be active. Below is a video of her performing and talking about her career at the San Francisco Library in 2014.
Happy birthday Ms. Dane!
What is your favorite Barbara Dane recording? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In the Martin Scorsese documentary about Bob Dylan’s early career, No Direction Home, Dylan recounts being inspired when he stumbled upon a record player with a record in it. The song that inspired him was “Drifting Too Far From the Shore.”
When Dylan was in kindergarten (in some tellings he is older), his father Abe bought a house on Seventh Avenue in Hibbing, Minnesota. Dylan ultimately lived in the home throughout his childhood and through high school.
For Dylan, though, something magical happened when they moved into the new home. As they were moving in, the boy found a guitar left behind by the previous occupants. And he found something else with “mystical overtones.”
There was a large mahogany turntable with a 78 rpm record in it. The record was of the song “Drifting Too Far From the Shore,” which was written by Charles E. Moody. The young boy turned on the record player and listened.
Drifting too far from shore, You’re drifting too far from shore, Come to Jesus today, Let Him show you the way You’re drifting too far from shore.
Drifting Too Far From the Shore
Dylan has recounted that the record he found in the house was probably the version recorded by The Stanley Brothers. But he also has noted it could have been the Bill Monroe version.
Here are The Stanley Brothers singing “Drifting Too Far From the Shore.”
Dylan has described how as a little boy turning on the record player, the sound of the record “made me feel like I was somebody else.” The sound disconnected him from his life at the time, making him feel almost as if he were born to the wrong parents.
Dylan later paid his own homage to “Drifting Too Far From the Shore.” He wrote his own song with the title “Driftin’ Too Far From Shore.” That song, which appeared on Dylan’s Knocked Out Loaded (1986) album, otherwise has little in common with the song the young boy heard in the new home.
Of course, with Dylan, one has to be careful about putting too much weight on his tales. He often tells entertaining stories about his early life that are more legend than truth. But still, it is easy to imagine a little boy finding a guitar and a record player that would have an impact on his life, even if a large part of that impact is in memory.
I like to accept the story not so much for Dylan, but to think about the people who lived in the house before the Dylans. I imagine the family moving out and leaving some things behind. Maybe the record player was too expensive to move. Or maybe they forgot the items. Or maybe the items just were not worth much to them.
And then, how could they know that their left-behind possessions would affect history by inspiring the greatest poet of our generation? It is a great story about how we never know how our lives affect others, even people we have never met.
Photo by Chimesfreedom. Leave your two cents in the comments.
On May 26, 1897, Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula went on sale in London bookshops. The vampire book would eventually spawn many versions in other media as well as other stories about the Count from Transylvania.
Episodes run anywhere between forty minutes and two hours, and each one may examine an artist’s career or may analyze the history behind a certain song, or both. For example, one two-part episode centered on the relationship between Buck Owens and his guitarist Don Rich. Another episode tells the story about how radio stations banned Loretta Lynn’s song, “The Pill.” Another episode focused on Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Bille Joe” while also giving a fascinating overview of Gentry’s career.
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(2018).
