chimesfreedom

Woody Guthrie’s “Peace Call”

“Peace Call” is one of Woody Guthrie’s lesser-known songs, perhaps because it was lost for awhile. I discovered the song not too long ago on the excellent Guthrie tribute CD, Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway (2008).

The CD is a live recording of performances of Guthrie’s songs and songs in his spirit, inter-cut with some narration of quotes from Guthrie. And all of the performances are great, perhaps because the organizers sought out performers who capture Guthrie’s spirit instead of going for big-name artists, although there are names you may recognize like Pete Seeger, Ellis Paul, and Slaid Cleaves.

One of the many highlights on the CD is singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson‘s performance of “Peace Call.” Guthrie’s lyrics had survived in his archives. But if he wrote music for the song, it was lost when he died.

So Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s daughter, asked Gilkyson to put music to the words. And Gilkyson did an excellent job. The song contains some of Guthrie’s most beautiful lyrics, reminding us how he was a genius with the language.

I’ll clear my house of the weeds of fear,
And turn to the friends around me;
With my smile of peace, I’ll greet you one and all;
I’ll work, I’ll fight, I’ll sing and dance,
Of peace of the youthful spirit;
Get ready for my bugle call of peace.

The artists from the Ribbon of Highway CD performed the songs on tour together. So, here is Gilkyson performing the song on December 12, 2008 at the University of Texas’ Union Ballroom in Austin, Texas. Other artists join her, including Joel Rafael, Ray Bonneville, Jimmy LaFave, Slaid Cleaves, Kevin Welch, and Michael Fracasso.

If you do not know this wonderful song, check it out below.

{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie on July 14, 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie and the Woody Guthrie Centennial too. }

What do you think of “Peace Call”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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The Loss of Another Great TV Straight Man: Ernest Borgnine

When I first heard that Ernest Borgnine passed away today at the age of 95, my first thoughts were of his great film roles in The Wild Bunch (1969), From Here to Eternity (1953), and Marty (1955), for which he won a Best Actor Academy Award. But as the news sunk in, I began to think more and more about the way I first saw him when I was a kid. Before I watched any of those movies, I knew him as Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale on McHale’s Navy. The series ran from 1962-1966, overlapping with The Andy Griffith Show. Borgnine and Griffith, who also passed away in the last week, had the great talent to play the heart of their respective shows amidst a sea of wacky characters. Neither show would be so fondly remembered without the fine work by the two actors.

Borgnine also appeared in two spin-off movies with the characters from the show, and he also had a small role in the 1997 film McHale’s Navy with Tom Arnold. Below is the first part of the first episode of the first season of McHale’s Navy, originally broadcast in 1962.

In this clip, Borgnine remembers how he became involved in McHale’s Navy, which started out from a drama called Seven Against the Sea.

Both Sheriff Taylor and Lt. Commander McHale were both men in uniform, but each know sometimes you had to work against an unfair system. Sheriff Taylor would dispense his own kind of fairness and justice, while McHale regularly found ways to protect his men from the often inept authority figure Captain Wallace Burton Binghamton (played by Joe Flynn). While neither comedy was revolutionary, looking back, one sees a little of the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s seeping out of these characters from early in the decade. Although McHale’s Navy was set during World War II, Ernest Borgnine knew how to give a heart to a character surrounded by craziness during a decade that saw the country getting deeper into another war in Asia. Rest in peace.

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A Story of the Land and the People: Centennial Miniseries

Don Grady Through the Years

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Save the Arctic With Radiohead and Jude Law

The Greenpeace Save the Arctic campaign has enlisted Radiohead and Jude Law in a new video. The film reflects concerns about climate change and oil company drilling that drastically affect the arctic and its wildlife, like the displaced polar bear in the video. The video features narration by Jude Law over Radiohead’s song “Everything in Its Right Place” from Kid A (2004). Check it out.

According to Greenpeace’s website, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke explained, “An oil spill in the Arctic would devastate this region of breathtaking beauty, while burning that oil will only add to the biggest problem we all face, climate change.” If you are concerned about the environment or do not want immigrant polar bears in your back yard, check out Greenpeace’s website.

Blue Journey Has a “Wonderful Life” on America’s Got Talent

Jimmy Kimmel’s All-Star Trailer for “Movie: The Movie 2V”

Pop Culture Roundup for December 2012

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell!

(Some related Chimesfreedom stories.)

To Rome with Love (Short Review)

Most reviews of Woody Allen’s latest film, To Rome with Love (2012), at some point feel the need to say the latest is not as good as Allen’s success from last year, Midnight in Paris. While it is true that the new film lacks the storyline of its predecessor, To Rome with Love is a light-hearted romp set amidst the beauty of Rome that has many funny moments and is a good summer movie.

In Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011), Allen shows a pile of scrap paper he carries around where he writes notes for ideas to movies. He explains that when it is time to write a new film, he throws the notes down and looks through them. I can imagine him doing that before he made To Rome with Love, finding four stories he liked but that on their own could not sustain a full-length film. Then, I imagine, he hit upon the idea to throw the four tales together into one movie and create To Rome with Love. And Allen being the talented director and writer that he is, he creates a fun and entertaining movie.

To Rome with Love features four stories with separate characters connected only in that they all are in Rome. One story follows an average worker played by Roberto Benigni who suddenly finds himself famous for no reason. In another story, a character played by Allen hears the father of his daughter’s boyfriend singing in the shower and decides to make him famous. In a third tale, a newly married Italian couple become separated in the big city and the husband ends up having to pretend that a prostitute (Penélope Cruz) is his wife. In the fourth story, a character played by Alec Baldwin goes looking for his past and ends up in a story where a young man (Jesse Eisenberg) considers cheating on his girlfriend (Greta Gerwig) with her friend (Ellen Page).

I will not ruin any of the stories, but different people will enjoy different stories more than the others. While I found them all interesting, I could not help thinking that the Baldwin-Eisenberg-Gerwig-Page tale is the one story that might have had a chance to be developed into the centerpiece of film on its own.

Conclusion? If you are looking for a summer romantic comedy with some laughs and wit, check out Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love. As all the critics will remind you, do not expect Midnight in Paris. But do not let that comparison stop you from seeing an entertaining funny film.

Other Reviews Because Why Should You Trust Me?: Rotten Tomatoes reflects shattered Midnight in Paris expectations from many critics and viewers, showing a 45% Critics Rating and a 50% Audience Rating. Mike Scott at the New Orleans Times-Picayune agrees with the low rating and calls the film, “shrug-worthy.” Gary Wolcutt at the Tri-City Herald, though, says the movie works “brilliantly” and gives it 4 1/2 stars. Finally, although the full review is not online for non-subscribers, David Denby of The New Yorker disagrees with many other critics and praises To Rome with Love as “a stronger film” than Midnight in Paris.

Midnight in Paris (short review)

Death in Movies That Remind Us to Enjoy Life

The Lost Jerry Lewis Movie: “The Day the Clown Cried”

“The End of the Tour” Takes Us On a Thoughtful Ride (Short Review)

Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace in ‘The End of the Tour’

The New York Subway in the Movies

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Adam Lambert Sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” On Tour With Queen

This Tuesday, Adam Lambert began his short tour with Queen in at Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine. Among the songs was the Queen classic, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” While nobody can replace the great singer Freddie Mercury, Lambert has the singing chops to pull off the songs. I am glad that Queen can still tour with a worthy front man, although some may complain that Lambert got his start as a runner up on the reality TV show American Idol. The performance remains a tribute to Mercury, though, as his voice and images appear during the performance, haunting the song and making us miss him even more.