THE FUNNIEST PEOPLE IN MUSIC, VOLUME 2: 250 ANECDOTES
By David Bruce
Dedicated with Love to Dad, Martha, Rosa, and Carla
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright 2010 by Bruce D. Bruce
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Cover Illustration
Illustrator: Lorelyn Medina
Agency: Dreamstime.com
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The Funniest People in Music, Volume 2
Acting
• Songwriter Steve Earle also occasionally acts. To prepare for a role as a recovering junkie in the HBO TV series The Wire, he allowed his hair to grow long and he didn’t shave. The preparation worked well. Although he was staying at a swanky hotel in London when The Times’ Stephen Dalton interviewed him in August of 2007, he looked very much like a homeless person. In fact, he said, “The other day I noticed the homeless guys that pick up the tin cans on my street, before the recycling people come, they started protecting their cans as I walked past. They thought I was competition.”
• Jazz musician Branford Marsalis is multi-talented. As an occasional actor, he was once offered the lead role in a television situation comedy! However, his manager, Anne Marie Wilkins, thought that he should turn down the role and concentrate on music, so she asked him, “Branford, what do you want to be?” He replied, “I want to do one thing well.” She asked, “And what thing is that?” Mr. Marsalis replied, “Everything.”
• Jimmy Stewart was a big fan of Duke Ellington and his music, and the two even appeared briefly together in the Otto Preminger movie Anatomy of a Murder. Mr. Stewart even started staying up late to listen to Mr. Ellington play the hotel piano—something that adversely affected his early-morning wake-up call to get ready to act. Mr. Preminger was finally forced to forbid Mr. Stewart to stay up late listening to the music.
• Musical composer Jerome Kern once worked with an actress who had the annoying habit of rolling her r’s. She asked, “You want me to crrrross the stage. How can I get acrrrross?” Mr. Kern replied, “Why don’t you roll on your r’s?”
Activism
• The Rascals, who were sometimes known as the Young Rascals, took a stand for civil rights in the 1960s. After the Rascals had played at a concert with some black musicians in a Rhythm and Blues group called the Young-Holt Trio, creators of the instrumental hit “Soulful Strut,” one of the black musicians thanked the Rascals, saying that usually the Young-Holt Trio didn’t “get a chance to play for white people.” This made Felix Cavaliere and the other members of the Rascals think, “Why not really try and contribute to this civil rights situation by having a white and black act wherever we go?” Therefore, they insisted that black groups be hired to perform at their concerts. Such an action is consistent with the message of “People Got to Be Free,” a big Rascals hit in 1968: “Shout it from the mountains on down to the sea / people everywhere just got to be free.”
• Can music be political? Yes. Dmitri Shostakovich used his music to protest the oppressive Soviet society in which he lived and worked. In the dark days of Soviet Communism, everyone had to appear to be cheerful, no matter how they really felt. (Sadness was taken as a criticism of the Communist state.) In his Fifth Symphony, Mr. Shostakovich wrote passages of great sadness, and audience members cried when they heard them. The symphony was so popular that Josef Stalin—murderer that he was—would not attack the composer.
• Even as an 11-year-old girl growing up in the South during the Jim Crow era, African-American singer Nina Simone, nee Eunice Waymon, was an activist. She was supposed to play piano at the Town Hall in Tryon, North Carolina, but she noticed that her parents, who were seated in the front row, were being asked to give up their seats to a white couple. She declined to play unless her parents were seated in the front row.
• Novelist and stand-up comedian A.L. Kennedy once witnessed a very good example of how to use comedy to defuse a tense situation. At a demonstration at which it seemed a riot could break out, the demonstrating college students made many people laugh by sitting down and singing a song to the tune of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”: “We all live in a terrorist regime.”
Alcohol
• Marshall Grant was a member of the group Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two (later, Tennessee Three). Although Mr. Cash abused drugs and alcohol, Mr. Grant never did. In his closet is a suit that he has owned for over 50 years. It was a present from his mother, who said, “Every one of my boys who can make it to 21 without a taste of alcohol, I’ll get them a suit of clothes.” Mr. Grant made it to 21 without tasting alcohol, and beyond. In 2006, he pointed out, “I’m 78 years old and strong as a bull. I don’t know the taste of beer, wine, or whiskey. I’ve never taken an illegal pill, never smoked a cigarette, and as of this past November [2006], I’ve been married for 60 years. That’s not too bad.”
• Dee Dee Ramone could be pretty crazy. When the Ramones first played in London, their record company gave them unlimited room service, and Dee Dee acted the way that he thought a rock star should act and ordered so many bottles of Scotch that in two days his room service bill was $700. The record company representatives were surprised by the size of the bill, and they told Dee Dee, “We just thought you were going to order some cheese sandwiches and Coca-Cola.”
Animals
• In 1979, the Italian conductor Claudio Abbado was appointed the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Quickly, musicians learned that Maestro Abbado has exacting standards, and during one rehearsal a musician told him that the London Symphony Orchestra did not always play at its best during rehearsals, but rather played only at 50 percent because the musicians reserved the other 50 percent for performances. Maestro Abbado replied, “Ah, but I need to get you up to the 50 percent in the first place!” By the way, Maestro Abbado is a committed environmentalist. Around his house in Sardinia, he has had planted 9,000 trees, which has led to a remarkable result: “And now the animals—rabbits, hares, deer, wild boar—have come back, spontaneously.”
• Early in the 20th century, the Belgian violinist Cesar Thomson played a concert at Oberlin College near Cleveland, Ohio. After the concert, the Oberlin accompanist, W.K. Breckenridge, accompanied him in a two-horse wagon to the train station. The wagon passed by a lonely scene—snow on the ground, a few trees, and a stream—and suddenly Mr. Thomson grabbed Mr. Breckenridge’s arm and asked, seriously, “Are there any wolves?” Mr. Breckenridge assured him that there were not.
Art
• In New York City, punk singer Patti Smith and artist Robert Mapplethorpe lived together with very little money. Ms. Smith remembers, “We had no money to get anything to eat, no money for art supplies—we were considerably down.” However, the two ran across an abandoned pair of very expensive alligator-skin shoes in the street; these shoes were worth $300 or $400. Ms. Smith looked at Mr. Mapplethorpe and asked, “Clothes or art?” Mr. Mapplethorpe replied, “Both,” and then he put on the shoes, using newspaper to make a good fit. A little later, he went home and put the expensive shoes in an art installation he was making. Ms. Smith remembers, “Everything was always Life or Art. It was magical when something could cross over and be both.”
• Famed photographer Yousuf Karsh took cellist Pablo Casals’ portrait from the back, something he rarely did. The portrait was once on exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and an elderly man came into the museum and stood in front of the portrait for a long time each day. Curious, the curator of the exhibit asked the old man, “Sir, why do you come here day after day and stand in front of this portrait?” The old man replied, “Hush, young man, hush. Can’t you see? I am listening to the music.”
Audiences
• Riccardo Martin was hailed as a “second Caruso,” but he adored Enrico Caruso so much that he disliked the comparison. One night at the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Martin was ill and could not sing, so Mr. Caruso took his place. Of course, the audience was delighted with their good luck in being able to hear the great tenor—all except one person, who demanded his money back because the singer who was scheduled to sing was not able to sing that night. When the ticket agent pointed out that he was able to hear the great Caruso instead, he insisted, “I paid my money to hear what you people said I was going to hear, and if I can’t hear what I paid for, I want my money back!” Mr. Caruso took great delight in telling the story of the man who wanted his money back because he was going to sing.
• Frances Langford sang with a big-band style, and she was popular on the radio, in movies, and on USO tours with Bob Hope. While performing with Mr. Hope in Salerno, Italy, Ms. Langford found the accommodations very primitive indeed. For example, her dressing room was constructed out in the open. A fence enclosed the dressing area, although it lacked a roof. However, while Ms. Langford was in the dressing room, she happened to look up, and she saw a hill on which were some trees; in every tree were guys. Ms. Langford says, “I think that was the biggest audience I ever had.”
• In 2009, the band known as the xx released their first album, a self-titled album that quickly became critically acclaimed. The xx’s early days were rough. They played gigs during which the audience talked all through their songs, which were mostly quiet. Madley Croft remembers, “If there were three people in the front row who were into it, that was a success.”
• As a young student in Italy, soprano Joan Hammond ran into a problem while attending operas. She could not afford the better seats, so she sat in the gallery. Often, while sitting there, she would feel a pinch from a man behind her. A reprimand worked, but only for a while, then she would feel another pinch. Moving didn’t help, either, for a different man would pinch her.
• Felix Mendelssohn wrote interesting letters as well as interesting music. He once wrote about an audience filled with ladies wearing brightly colored hats: While he played during the concert, he watched the audience and saw that the hat-wearing ladies were bobbing their heads in time with the music so that the scene looked like wind blowing over a bed of tulips.
Auditions
• Soul singer James Brown got his big break after he and his band, the Flames, took the stage without authorization during an intermission in a Little Richard concert in Macon, Georgia, in 1955. They wowed the crowd, and they wowed Little Richard’s road manager, who gave them the telephone number of the man who managed most Mason-based R&B acts: Clint Brantley. Sure enough, they showed up to audition for Mr. Brantley that Saturday. Unfortunately, Mr. Brantley was hung over and at first requested that they leave, but he relented enough to let them sing one song. They sang “Looking for My Mother,” and Mr. Brantley recalled, “Godd*mn, man, them sons-of-b*tches, they looked for her, too. All under the tables, all under the d*mned seats. Everywhere. When they got through, I said, ‘Boys, y’all can sing!’” And, of course, he signed the group.
• Early in her operatic career, Grace Moore sang “Depuis le jour” from Louise at an audition in front of conductor Albert Wolff. After she had finished singing, Mr. Wolff told her, “My dear, you have a beautiful voice, but you don’t know what you are singing about. Go out and live and then come back and sing it for me, and I will tell you what career you shall have.” Years later, Ms. Moore again sang “Depuis le jour” for Mr. Wolff. This time, he told her, “I don’t know what you have done since I spoke to you last, but you have exceeded expectations.”
Autographs
• Joe Moscheo, the pianist for the gospel group The Imperials, met Elvis Presley for the first time at a gospel-music gathering, and of course he asked Mr. Presley for his autograph—he lied and said that the autograph was for his mother, although he actually wanted it for himself. However, he was shocked when Mr. Presley knew who he was. Mr. Presley explained that he studied gospel music extensively and knew much more about gospel than most people thought he knew. Then he said about the autograph, “If you give me yours, I’ll give you mine.”
• Comedian Bill Hicks was backstage during the intermission of a concert by Ray Charles, where he witnessed a woman trying to get Mr. Charles’ autograph although members of Mr. Charles’ staff said that he did not sign autographs. Finally, a member of the staff said, “I sign autographs for Mr. Charles.” The woman said, “You do! Oh, thank you!” Mr. Hicks said, “Hey, I can get you John Lennon’s autograph.”
Automobiles
• Rocker Neil Young loves his cars. In 1966, when he was 20 years old, he drove a Pontiac hearse to LA from Toronto, Canada—2,000 miles. His choice of a hearse was fortuitous, as the roomy back served as his home for months as he sought to establish himself. He even made appointments with other people to meet him at his home—that is, his hearse. After he became a wealthy rocker, Mr. Young continued to buy and drive interesting cars, including a 1951 Chrysler and a 1956 Cadillac—and even a 1950 Buick Roadmaster hearse.
• Tenor Mario del Monaco liked fast cars, and unfortunately in 1963 he had a serious accident in one, smashing his leg, which ended up several inches shorter than his other leg. Before he allowed physicians to work on his leg, he sang a loud high C to make sure that his voice was undamaged.
• In 1981, a 1971 Detomaso Pantera that had been owned by the late Elvis Presley was sold. The automobile was not in brand-new condition because its dashboard was riddled with bullet holes. After the car had refused to start one day, Mr. Presley shot it several times.
Awards
• Ellen Zwilich is the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize in music; in 1983, she won for her composition Symphony No. 1: Three Movements for Orchestra. Afterward, she was surprised by the number of people who asked her, “How does it feel to be the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in music?” Her usual reply was, “I hope it’s the last time gender is more important than creativity.”
• Harlan Howard, Roger Miller, and Willie Nelson had a wonderful time one year at the BMI Awards dinner in Nashville. Each and every time a winner was announced, the trio would jump up and run to accept the award, causing mass amounts of confusion until the real winner appeared on stage.
Bathrooms
• The pediatrician of opera critic Patrick J. Smith was very good at giving his own criticisms of bad productions at the New York Metropolitan Opera. He once stated about a certain production, “It needs a collective glycerine suppository up the rear.”
• Louis Armstrong had cards made up with his picture on them—the picture showed him sitting on the toilet. Celebrity interviewer Joe Franklin says, “He was the only guy I knew who gave out cards like that.”
Big Breaks
• How did one get to be a member of the Beatles, perhaps the most famous and influential band in rock-and-roll history? John Lennon became a member simply by starting his own musical group as a teenager. He started a group called the Blackjacks, which became the Quarry Men, and through a series of personnel changes eventually became the Beatles. John invited Paul McCartney to join the Quarry Men because of his superior musicianship—Paul could tune his guitar, which is something none of the Quarry Men could do. George Harrison idolized John, but was invited to join the Quarry Men mainly because his mother was willing to let the Quarry Men practice at her house. Ringo Starr joined the Beatles after Pete Best was forced out of the group, allegedly for either sub-standard drumming or for being the best-looking Beatle. According to speculation, aka vicious gossip, Paul wanted to be the heartthrob of the group, and he felt threatened by Pete’s good looks. If that is true, Ringo may have been asked to join the Beatles just before they became rich and famous simply because he could drum and had a big nose. Of course, the group became very big very quickly. When they landed at JFK Airport on February 7, 1964, for their first visit to the United States, their fans made so much commotion that the Beatles thought that either Elvis Presley or the President of the United States was landing at the same time.
• B.B. King got a lucky break early in his career in Memphis. Bluesman and radio host Sonny Boy Williamson made a mistake and agreed to sing at two different clubs at the same time, an obvious impossibility. Therefore, he decided to let B.B. sing at one of the clubs—the one that paid less. However, he knew that the owner of that club, Miss Annie, was tough and would not let B.B. play at her club unless he could bring in some customers. No problem. Sonny Boy knew how to make B.B. a celebrity in a hurry—he simply put B.B. on his radio show and had him play some music. Miss Annie and lots of potential customers were listening, and B.B. brought in a bunch of customers when he played at Miss Annie’s club. Another early job that B.B. had at about the same time was selling a popular all-purpose tonic called Pepticon. He played his guitar and sang and then sold Pepticon. For a long time, he wondered why Pepticon was so popular, then he discovered that it was 12 percent alcohol.
• Bill Wyman, bass player for the Rolling Stones, grew up poor. His family owned only one toothbrush, which they shared, and food was often lacking. Later, when the Rolling Stones were just getting started, he was able to join the band despite a lack of enthusiasm from the other members because he enjoyed a little material prosperity. He explains, “They didn’t like me, but I had a good amplifier, and they were badly in need of amplifiers at that time. So they kept me on.”
Children
• Bobbie Lee Nelson is Willie Nelson’s sister—he calls her “Sister Bobbie.” For decades, she has toured with her famous younger brother. At age 77, she recorded her first solo album, although she didn’t know that she was doing that. Willie asked her one day, “Well, Sister Bobbie, why don’t you just go over there and warm up that piano?” And when she wasn’t looking, he turned on the tape machine. Their entire family was musical. She remembers their grandparents studying music theory from books they had gotten by mail order. At age six, she got her first piano. Before age six, she made a play piano out of cardboard and pretended to play it. Bobbie Lee says, “We played like we were having a piano there and I would play and we’d sing. We had a great childhood.” One of the things that made their childhood great was their sibling love for each other—they even ate dirt together. “We had this little toy stove and we made mud pies in the sun,” Bobbie Lee says. “When they would get baked, he would say, ‘Sister Bobbie, it’s so good. Just take a bite.’ And he had me eating dirt with him. That’s how much I love Willie. I do anything he tells me to do.”
• Singer Avril Lavigne was born and raised in Canada, and like most or all Canadians, she likes hockey. As a 10- and 11-year-old, she was the only girl on her hockey team, and she could take care of herself in a hockey fight. In fact, on occasion, she started fights. In one case, she started a fight with an opposing player who had insulted one of her teammates. In another fight, the goalie was someone who had picked on her at school, so she took the opportunity of the hockey game to fight him. Her father recorded this fight—in the background fans can be heard cheering her on in the fight: “Avril! Avril!” When Avril turned 18, her record company, Arista, gave her an ice hockey birthday party at an indoor skating rink. She played with enough passion that she knocked down an Arista executive.
• When Beverly Sells was a little girl, her mother recognized that she had talent because of the way young Beverly sang the arias that she heard on records. Therefore, she took Beverly to audition for the great singing teacher Estelle Liebling. At first, Ms. Liebling did not want to hear Beverly sing, saying, “I don’t teach little girls. I don’t even know any little girls.” However, she did listen to Beverly sing an aria, and she laughed because she recognized that Beverly was imitating an Amelita Galli-Curci record that she had heard played at home. Ms. Liebling had been the voice teacher who had taught Ms. Galli-Curci to sing the aria. Of course, Ms. Liebling recognized young Beverly’s talent and became her voice teacher.
• Country music singer Faith Hill got her start the way many singers do. When Faith was a child, her mother paid her a quarter to sing in front of guests. Sometimes, Faith would get fifty cents for singing a song such as “Jesus Loves Me” at a family reunion. Later, after Faith had decided to become a professional singer, her musical experiences were not so typical. For example, as a teenager she once sang on a stage in Raleigh, Mississippi, following a tobacco-spitting contest. The contestants took turns spitting tobacco juice the greatest distance they could. Before Faith could sing, the stage had to be wiped with towels.
• Sir Thomas Beecham, the world-class conductor of classical music, once was staying at a rented house when he was disturbed by the noise made by a local boys’ band. Sir Thomas suggested that the boys practice further away, and one of the boys told him, “You don’t appreciate good music.”
• Music critic Warren Zanes’ son was greedy for mother’s milk after he was born; in fact, Mr. and Mrs. Zanes referred to him as “The Milk Pig.” They even speculated for a while that their son would devour his mother the same way that many people devour a chicken dinner—they start with the breast.
• Poly Styrene, the pseudonym of Marian Elliot-Said, was a well-known British female punk rocker who started writing protest songs when she was only five years old. She explains, “Our dinner lady used to make me eat meat and I didn’t want to so I wrote a song about it.”
Christmas
• Mark Evanier, a blogger at <newsfromme.com>, ate frequently at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles. One day near Christmas, as a group of four young people were strolling around and singing carols, he noticed Mel Tormé, aka the Velvet Fog, sitting at a table eating an English muffin, drinking coffee, and reading The New York Times. Therefore, he motioned the carolers to come to him and told them that Mel Tormé was sitting at the nearby table. Because they were so young, they didn’t knew who Mel Tormé was, so he explained that Mr. Tormé was a co-writer of “The Christmas Song,” which begins with “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ….” After hearing this, the carolers approached Mr. Tormé’s table and started to sing “The Christmas Song.” With a big smile, Mr. Tormé got up to sing a few lines near the end of the song. The head of the carolers had a worried expression on his face as he wondered whether this short, fat, elderly man could sing, but of course the Velvet Fog sang perfectly. Everyone sang the last line of the song together, and nearby auditors broke into spontaneous applause. The leader of the carolers told Mr. Tormé, “You know, you’re not a bad singer.” Of course, Mr. Tormé realized that the leader of the carolers had little idea who he was, so he said, “Well, I’ve actually made a few records in my day....” “Really,” the leader of the carolers said. “How many?” Mr. Tormé replied, “Ninety.”
• In 1993, around Christmas, country music superstar Garth Brooks saw a man and woman carrying their one-year-old daughter and some bags of groceries. He gave them a ride to their home, during which he learned that the young couple’s car had broken down, and they could not afford to have it fixed. Mr. Brooks returned in an hour to give them the keys to a 1986 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. (He gave them the car, too.) The woman thought she recognized him and asked if he was Garth Brooks, but Mr. Brooks said only that he was a fan of the popular country singer.
Clothing
• Atomic Records, an independent record store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, gave away lots of free T-shirts to band members. Rich Menning, owner of Atomic Records, says, “In the early days, we’d give them away like candy just for the thrill of maybe seeing them in a photo later on.” Giving the T-shirts away did result in a few thrills. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins wore one for the artwork of their compilation album Judas Iscariot. A member of Teenage Fanclub wore one for the artwork of their “Norman 3” single. Dave Abbruzzese of Pearl Jam wore one while performing on Saturday Night Live. Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick wore one for their encore at a concert on Milwaukee’s lakefront. Mr. Menning, however, admits, “I’ve always figured the wearing of the Atomic t-shirt thing was more a matter of hygiene for touring bands and not so much a show of love. … I figured the bands only wore them because it meant they could go one more day without having to stop and do their laundry.” Unfortunately, Atomic Records closed in 2009.
• Iggy Pop of Iggy and the Stooges had a talent for drawing attention to himself. One day, he admired a full-length dress that a young woman was wearing, and he convinced her to let him wear it. He ended up being arrested and taken to jail while wearing the dress, and the friends who got him his bail were shocked by what he was wearing. One friend asked, “Is that a woman’s dress?” Iggy replied, “No, this is a man’s dress.” (Iggy was wild and crazy; at his early concerts, he occasionally rolled around in broken glass, necessitating stitches. Oddly, he derived a benefit from this. When a young woman asked him if he were Iggy, he would say, “Sure.” If this didn’t convince the young woman, she would say, “Show me your scars.” Iggy was able to use his scars as a form of ID.)
• While singing at a Three Choirs Festival, Astra Desmond stayed at the same hotel as composer Sir Edward Elgar. One morning at breakfast in the dining room of the hotel, Sir Edward asked her to show him her leg, which was hidden by the dining table. She did, and he looked at it and said, “No good.” Everyone was surprised by his actions, so he explained that one of the horses in a race was named “Grey Silk Stockings,” and if Ms. Desmond had been wearing grey stockings he would have taken that as a sign to bet on that horse.
• Some punk rockers dressed very well—in clothes they found in the garbage. Debbie Harry of Blondie once posed for a poster early in her career while wearing a zebra-stripe dress. Before it became a dress, it was a zebra-stripe pillowcase that someone had put in the garbage. Ms. Harry says, “New York has gorgeous garbage sometimes. Leather jackets, suits, and boots could be found in excellent condition.”
• In 1936, the always well-dressed Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted an orchestra in Australia, surprising the musicians with his impeccable suit and the red carnation in his buttonhole. During a break in the rehearsal, members of the brass section went outside, visited a street vendor, and returned with decorations in their own buttonholes: each was sporting a red candy apple.
• After she started making lots of money, folk singer Joan Baez faced a dilemma. She enjoyed wearing expensive suits from such fancy places as Saks Fifth Avenue and I. Magnin, yet many of her songs were about the poor. She solved the dilemma by buying four of each outfit she liked and giving away three.
Comedians
• Comedian Rusty Warren talked about sex in public before “decent” women were allowed to talk about sex in public. For example, when sex researchers Masters and Johnson identified approximately 349 sex positions, Ms. Warren joked that she knew only three sex positions—but she knew them good. One of her hits was a song titled “Bounce Your Boobies,” which Air America host Randi Rhodes played occasionally. Later women comedians recognized her as the pioneer she was. Lily Tomlin requested an autographed photograph of her, and Elaine Boosler sent Ms. Warren a photograph inscribed, “Thanks for blazing the trail.”
• For comedian Gracie Allen, Paul Whiteman’s arranger wrote an original concert piece: “The Concerto for Index Finger.” This involved Gracie, after a big buildup by the orchestra, hitting the wrong note with her index finger a couple of times; eventually she gets it right and the entire orchestra cheers. Gracie performed this concerto at Carnegie Hall.
Competition
• During the 1950s, Jamaican bar and dance-hall owners traveled throughout the United States looking for the best records to play. In these battles of the sound systems, a system owner with a good record would try to keep it secret from other system owners. Often, the system owner would either scratch the name of the producer and the title of the song off the record label or would paste a false label with a false name and a false title over the original record label.
• Roy Henderson once sang with a small town choral society in Yorkshire. At the end of the concert, the conductor asked what he thought of the choir. Of course, Mr. Henderson replied that it was a very good choir, and the conductor said, “Aye, an’ I don’t mind tellin’ ee that we ’ad four basses ready to taak thy part if tha’d conked out.”
Composers
• John Philip Sousa composed “The Stars and Stripes Forever” in 1896, while returning from a European tour. While he was on board ship, it seemed as if a band were playing in his head, and when he reached land, he wrote down the music the band had been playing. He felt strongly about the title—when his music publisher wanted the title to be “Stars and Stripes,” Mr. Sousa insisted that the word “Forever” remain in the title. Of course, this became his most famous composition, and it remained a part of his concerts until the end of his life. Paul Bierley, an expert on Mr. Sousa’s life and music, says, “He would have been tarred and feathered if he didn’t play it. When the March King came to town, you had to hear ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’” On March 6, 1932, Mr. Sousa conducted a concert in Reading, Pennsylvania. The last composition his band played was, as you would expect, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Later that day, at age 77, Mr. Sousa died.
• Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham wrote a number of R&B hits of the 1960s, including “I’m Your Puppet,” “Dark End of the Street,” and “Sweet Inspiration.” They worked hard, but their method of delivering their songs to the musicians was unusual—they wrote late until the night and early the next morning, then they left the pages on which they had written their songs on the floor for the musicians to pick up later. Mr. Penn says, “It was kinda like, take that! We worked hard, we wrote a good song, now there it is! You pick it up! Bend over!”