One of the more challenging aspects of acting is when an actor must speak in a dialect or with an accent that is not native to the actor. Sometimes the actor does a great job, and sometimes they don’t.
In this video from Wired, dialect coach Erik Singer analyzes 32 different accents from actors such as Brad Pitt, Kate Winslet, Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Heath Ledger, and many more.
Singer is generally generous in his criticisms, noting how difficult it is to get the correct accents on everything. He points out several times where actors get some things right and some things wrong. And he has strong praise for others.
Check out Erik Singer giving us a nice lesson in accents in Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 32 Actors’ Accents.
What is your favorite movie accent? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Tina Turner was born as Anna Mae Bullock in in Haywood County, Tennessee on November 26, 1939. She has had an incredible music career, including her work with Ike Turner and Phil Spector in the 1960s as well as her great solo work in the 1980s, including the album Private Dancer (1984).
1980s Music
In 1989, Turner released the album Foreign Affair, which did not do as well as Private Dancer, which had hits like “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” But Foreign Affair was a solid album and did include a song that became one of her signature hits, “The Best.” That song was written by Mike Chapman and Holly Knight and had previously been recorded by Bonnie Tyler.
Turner also did some great duets beyond her work with Ike, including a hit recording of “It’s Only Love” with Bryan Adams. Below she performs “Tonight” with David Bowie in 1985. The song was written by Bowie and Iggy Pop. This live version appeared on the live album Tina Live in Europe (1988).
On the Big Screen
Turner also appeared on the big screen, such as acting in the 1985 movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. She also appeared as the Acid Queen in The Who’s Tommy (1975).
In addition to acting on the big screen, she has been portrayed in a movie. Her abusive relationship with Ike Turner was portrayed in What’s Love Got to Do with It in 1993.
Retirement
Turner followed those movies with some more music releases and performances. But she announced her semi-retirement in 2000 and formally retired from the stage in 2009.
Today, Turner lives in Switzerland with her husband, and she became a Swiss citizen in 2013. Unfortunately, we do not get to hear from her much nowadays. She of course deserves her privacy and happiness after the life she gave to us through her music.
But she did return to the stage in 2015 around her birthday to perform “The Best,” and she showed us that at 76 years of age she still was the best.
Absence as Solo Artist from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
There is one thing that Turner deserves from us. While she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the duo of Ike and Tina Turner, she has not yet been inducted as an individual artist, even though she has been eligible since 1998. She more than deserves it based on the quality of her solo work (not even addressing the way women have been treated in rock). So, hopefully the Hall will correct the injustice while she can still attend the induction. UPDATE: In 2021, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist.
And that brings me to my favorite Turner solo track, “Better Be Good To Me,” which is from Private Dancer and one of the best songs of the 1980s.
What is your favorite Tina Turner song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Bob Dylan walked in on the Replacements doing a parody of his song “Like a Rolling Stone.”
A “Talk of the Town” segment in The New Yorker featured a short profile of record producer Scott Litt, who had produced records by the likes of Nirvana and R.E.M. In the article, Litt told an interesting story about the first time he met Bob Dylan.
More than a few decades ago, Litt was producing a Replacements album, working in the studio with the band. Dylan was working on his own record nearby, so he stopped by to check out the Replacements.
When Dylan walked in the studio wearing a hoodie, it just happened to be the same time that the Replacements’ leader Paul Westerberg was singing a parody of Dylan’s hit song “Like a Rolling Stone” called “Like a Rolling Pin.”
Westerberg did not notice Dylan standing there, and Litt failed to alert the singer, who continued with the parody. Finally, when Westerberg finished, Dylan asked, “You guys rehearse much?” Then he left.
The lyrics to “Like a Rolling Pin” are nothing special, using phrases from Dylan’s original mixed with some small changes. I believe the song did not end up on the album at the time, appearing later with B-sides and unreleased tracks on All For Nothing/Nothing For All (1997). But the Replacements can sing the phone book and make it sound like a great song. So when they start off with a great Dylan song, one cannot complain.
More than twenty years later, Litt finally got to work with the singer of “Like a Rolling Stone” when he was the engineer for Dylan’s 2012 album Tempest. While working with Dylan on Tempest, Litt did not mention their previous studio encounter. [Nick Paumgarten, Hello, Bobby, The New Yorker, 1 Oct. 2012: 22-23.]
What is your favorite Bob Dylan cover? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In the third episode of season seven of The Walking Dead, “The Cell,” the producers gifted us with an earworm of a song, “Easy Street.” In the episode, Negan’s The Saviours are holding Daryl Dixon as prisoner. As Dwight (Austin Amelio) works to break Daryl, he plays the song repeatedly as part of a torture tactic.
“Easy Street” is performed by The Collapsable Hearts Club, and it was written by Jim Bianco. Bianco explained to The Independent that he was happy to hear his song used on the show, even if it were being used to torture someone. “I think the show used it brilliantly,” he explained, “Framing such an upbeat song as a torture advice is a work of genius by the music supervisor.” We’re on easy street, And it feels so sweet; ‘Cause the world is ’bout a treat, When you’re on easy street.
Bianco wrote the song while driving in his car and thinking about those “rare moments” when you are “holding the winning card.” Below is a video of 10 hours of the song.
There is not much about The Collapsable Hearts Club on the Internet, but the lead singer is Petra Haden, who has done a substantial amount of other musical work. Bianco is also part of the group, singing backup. And Brad Gordon plays the horns.
Currently, Daryl, played by Norman Reedus, is no longer the only person with the song stuck in his head. After the episode, “Easy Street” appeared on the UK Singles Chart, and it also has climbed to #1 on the US Spotify viral charts. What do you think of “Easy Street”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On November 15, 1956, Elvis Presley made his movie debut in Love Me Tender as the film premiered at New York’s Paramount Theater. The film is set in Texas after the U.S. Civil War.
In the movie, Elvis plays Clint Reno, the brother of a former Confederate soldier. If you are going to make a movie with the most popular rock and roll star of the era, apparently someone thought it would be a good idea to put him in a period piece.
Presley started his music career with Sun Records in 1954, and then his first album for RCA was released in March 1956. So at the time of the release of Love Me Tender, Presley had only been recording music for a few years. Also, he had made his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9, 1956, only a few months before the release of Love Me Tender.
The film initially had the title, The Reno Brothers. But after advance sales of the single “Love Me Tender” went through the roof, the movie was renamed after the song. Elvis sang “Love Me Tender” in the movie, along with three other songs.
The film was similar to Elvis’s later films in that it combined a story with Elvis singing. But it differed from many of his later films in that he did not play the lead role in Love Me Tender. Additionally [spoiler alert!], Presley’s character died at the end, which would have been unthinkable in his later movies.
What is your favorite Elvis Presley movie? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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On November 15, 1956, Elvis Presley made his 