1950
BONNIE OWENS-EXCUSE ME FOR LIVING
Born Bonnie Campbell in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Bonnie Owens was a country music singer who was married to Buck Owens and later Merle Haggard. Mainly most people know Owens for these two previous reasons but in the 50s and the 60s Bonnie Owens was a singer/songwriter in her own right. She met Buck Owens when she was only fifteen. They played in a band in Mesa, Arizona and then later were married in 1951 and moved to Bakersfield, California. They eventually divorced but moving to Bakersfield jumpstarted both their careers in music. [edit] Fame Bonnie Owens' first recording was a duet with Fuzzy Owen called "A Dear John Letter" and was on Mar-Vel Records #MV-102 and dates about 1950. Side B contained a song titled Wonderful World. Bonnie and Fuzzys A Dear John Letter was not a remake of the 1953 Jean Shepard/Ferlin Husky version as some believe, as theirs predated Shepard/Husky by 3 years. Owens recorded on numerous labels during the 1950s and early 1960s including Merle Haggards and Fuzzy Owens own Tally label, all of which were singles. Her first album titled Dont Take Advantage Of Me came in 1965 on Capitol Records # ST-2403. Owens was named Female Vocalist Of The Year in 1965 by the Academy Of Country Music and she and Haggard were married that same year. From that point on Bonnie dedicated her time to Haggards children and his career, touring with Merles band The Strangers as a backup vocalist. Little known to many is the fact that during the early stages of Bonnie and Merles careers together, Bonnie was the headliner, and Merle, the up and coming (and underlining) new star. Owens and Haggard divorced in 1978, and after a brief hiatus, she continued touring with him. She had hits on the Country charts in the early 1960s with the songs "Why Don't Daddy Live Here Anymore?" and "Don't Take Advantage Of Me". In 1965 Haggard and Owens recorded the song called "Just Between the Two of Us", a duet hit and probably Owen's best known hit. It was also the title...
ANITA & HELEN CARTER-BRIAN
A member of country music's most famous family, Anita Carter found success of her own as a folk solo act during the early '50s and late '60s. The Carter Family had ruled country music during the 1930s, but broke up in 1943 after patriarch A.P. Carter and his ex-wife Sara decided to retire. Sara's cousin Maybelle, the third member of the Carters, re-formed the group the same year -- as Mother Maybelle & the Carter Sisters -- with her daughters Helen, June, and Anita. The sisters had sung on Carter Family radio broadcasts in 1935, and the new group more than made up for the breakup of the originals. The Carters performed on radio from Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri during the late '40s, but moved to the Grand Ole Opry in 1950. In 1951, Anita stormed the charts with a one-off duet with Hank Snow; both "Bluebird Island" and its B-side, "Down the Trail of Achin' Hearts," reached the country Top Five. During the mid-'50s, she also performed with the teen trio 'Nita, Rita & Ruby, but spent most of her time with the Carters. The group continued to be popular on the Opry, and even opened for Elvis Presley in 1956-1957. After A.P. Carter's death in 1960, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters became the Carter Family and performed more contemporary country than gospel. In 1961, the Carters began a long-running association with Johnny Cash by appearing in his road show. They recorded the country Top 15 single "Busted" with Cash in 1963, and after June Carter married him in 1967, the Carters appeared on his ABC-TV show from 1969 to 1971. Though the Carter Family continued to record -- usually with Cash -- during the early '70s, they disbanded in 1969. Mother Maybelle became recognized as a major figure in the folk revival that year, appearing with Sara at the Newport Folk Festival and on the Rounder album An Historic Reunion. Meanwhile, Anita had begun to record for RCA in 1966, hitting the country charts with "I'm Gonna Leave You." Another single charted in 1967,...
Man on a Tightrope//Three
(Fourteen parts) Czechoslovakia, 1952: Karel Cernik struggles to keep his Circus Cernik together, despite mounting restrictions laid on him by the new communist regime. When local officials order him to dismiss foreign members of his troop or face its liquidation, his dream of escape to the West becomes a plan. This was based on an actual incident, which was the basis of Neil Paterson's story "International Incident". Some of the supporting roles in this film were played by performers who made the escape with Circus Brumbach. Historical fact has of course been embelished a bit, and the American accents require some suspension of disbelief. But in the stark, violent ending, one gets a feeling of having witnessed a very real event. Filmed in Bavaria. (I apologize for jitters in the video. These are probably due to conversion from TV analog to digital format.) ABOUT ELIA KAZAN: A former communist, Elia Kazan made a turnaround after learning of the repressions of Stalin's regime, and later testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about several Hollywood professionals who were communists or communist sympathizers--a step for which many in Hollywood never forgave him. "Man on a Tightrope" is one of his lesser-known, rarely-seen works. A few additional notes from the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) website: "...Neil Paterson's book first appeared as a novelette in the British magazine Lilliput under the title International Incident. As noted by contemporary sources, the film is loosely based on real incidents involving the Brumbach Circus, which escaped from Communist-controlled East Germany to West Germany in 1950. Unlike the escape in the film, however, circus owner Gustav Brumbach slowly moved a few camouflaged pieces of equipment and performers at a time, over a period of several months. Contemporary sources note that many members of the Brumbach Circus, including Madame Brumbach and dwarf Hansi, appeared in or worked on the film, which was shot...
Tags: Adolphe arts Bavaria Brumbach Cernik Circus communist Czech Czechslovakia Elia Frederic Kazan March Menjou performing
Ornstein - Impressions of the Thames
Impressions of the Thames (1920) Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano Leo Ornstein (1893-2002) was once a celebrated American composer in the early 20th-century, often regarded as the "poster boy" for the avant-garde in American music. Music textbooks are quick to cite Henry Cowell as the progenitor of the tone cluster in art-music, but credit should be given to Ornstein, who made innovative applications of tone clusters in his early piano pieces of the 1910s. Although considered an American composer, Ornstein was born in Ukraine and studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He established a controversial but famous repuation in America both as a pianist and as a radically modern composer. But after 1920, Ornstein slowly abandoned his efforts in the avant-garde and his idiom became relaxed and more conservative, angering many of the modernist cohorts who admired his music. In the 1930's Ornstein and his wife founded a music school in Philadelphia and he devoted his time to teaching until the 1950's. Throughout these decades Ornstein's music and his very name became marginalized and he seemed to vanish from the music world entirely until the 1970's. After turning his back on the avant-garde, Ornstein composed music in an accessible style reminiscent of Rachmaninov with occasional forays into biting dissonance. His last composition, the Eighth Piano Sonata, was finished at the age of 97, but it is his early experimental works that show the indelible stamp of genius.
Tags: avant-garde bartok contemporary cowell debussy hamelin ives leo marc-andre mosolov ornstein prokofiev schoenberg stravinsky
Man on a Tightrope//Two
(Fourteen parts) Czechoslovakia, 1952: Karel Cernik struggles to keep his Circus Cernik together, despite mounting restrictions laid on him by the new communist regime. When local officials order him to dismiss foreign members of his troop or face its liquidation, his dream of escape to the West becomes a plan. This was based on an actual incident, which was the basis of Neil Paterson's story "International Incident". Some of the supporting roles in this film were played by performers who made the escape with Circus Brumbach. Historical fact has of course been embelished a bit, and the American accents require some suspension of disbelief. But in the stark, violent ending, one gets a feeling of having witnessed a very real event. Filmed in Bavaria. (I apologize for jitters in the video. These are probably due to conversion from TV analog to digital format.) ABOUT ELIA KAZAN: A former communist, Elia Kazan made a turnaround after learning of the repressions of Stalin's regime, and later testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about several Hollywood professionals who were communists or communist sympathizers--a step for which many in Hollywood never forgave him. "Man on a Tightrope" is one of his lesser-known, rarely-seen works. A few additional notes from the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) website: "...Neil Paterson's book first appeared as a novelette in the British magazine Lilliput under the title International Incident. As noted by contemporary sources, the film is loosely based on real incidents involving the Brumbach Circus, which escaped from Communist-controlled East Germany to West Germany in 1950. Unlike the escape in the film, however, circus owner Gustav Brumbach slowly moved a few camouflaged pieces of equipment and performers at a time, over a period of several months. Contemporary sources note that many members of the Brumbach Circus, including Madame Brumbach and dwarf Hansi, appeared in or worked on the film, which was shot...
Tags: Adolphe arts Bavaria Brumbach Cernik Circus communist Czech Czechslovakia Elia Frederic Kazan March Menjou performing
Ornstein - Arabesques
Arabesques Op. 42 No. 1 (1921) I. "The Isle of Elephants" II. "Primal Echo" III. "Chant of Hindoo Priests" IV. "Shadowed Waters" V. "A Melancholy Landscape" VI. "Pompeian Fresco" VII. "Passion" VIII. "Les Basoches" IX. "The Wailing and Raging Wind" Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano Leo Ornstein (1893-2002) was once a celebrated American composer in the early 20th-century, often regarded as the "poster boy" for the avant-garde in American music. Music textbooks are quick to cite Henry Cowell as the progenitor of the tone cluster in art-music, but credit should be given to Ornstein, who made innovative applications of tone clusters in his early piano pieces of the 1910s. Although considered an American composer, Ornstein was born in Ukraine and studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He established a controversial but famous repuation in America both as a pianist and as a radically modern composer. But after 1920, Ornstein slowly abandoned his efforts in the avant-garde and his idiom became relaxed and more conservative, angering many of the modernist cohorts who admired his music. In the 1930's Ornstein and his wife founded a music school in Philadelphia and he devoted his time to teaching until the 1950's. Throughout these decades Ornstein's music and his very name became marginalized and he seemed to vanish from the music world entirely until the 1970's. After turning his back on the avant-garde, Ornstein composed music in an accessible style reminiscent of Rachmaninov with occasional forays into biting dissonance. His last composition, the Eighth Piano Sonata, was finished at the age of 97, but it is his early experimental works that show the indelible stamp of genius.
Tags: avant-garde bartok contemporary cowell debussy hamelin ives leo marc-andre mosolov ornstein prokofiev schoenberg stravinsky
Man on a Tightrope//One
(Fourteen parts) Czechoslovakia, 1952: Karel Cernik struggles to keep his Circus Cernik together, despite mounting restrictions laid on him by the new communist regime. When local officials order him to dismiss foreign members of his troop or face its liquidation, his dream of escape to the West becomes a plan. This was based on an actual incident, which was the basis of Neil Paterson's story "International Incident". Some of the supporting roles in this film were played by performers who made the escape with Circus Brumbach. Historical fact has of course been embelished a bit, and the American accents require some suspension of disbelief. But in the stark, violent ending, one gets a feeling of having witnessed a very real event. Filmed in Bavaria. (I apologize for jitters in the video. These are probably due to conversion from TV analog to digital format.) ABOUT ELIA KAZAN: A former communist, Elia Kazan made a turnaround after learning of the repressions of Stalin's regime, and later testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about several Hollywood professionals who were communists or communist sympathizers--a step for which many in Hollywood never forgave him. "Man on a Tightrope" is one of his lesser-known, rarely-seen works. A few additional notes from the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) website: "...Neil Paterson's book first appeared as a novelette in the British magazine Lilliput under the title International Incident. As noted by contemporary sources, the film is loosely based on real incidents involving the Brumbach Circus, which escaped from Communist-controlled East Germany to West Germany in 1950. Unlike the escape in the film, however, circus owner Gustav Brumbach slowly moved a few camouflaged pieces of equipment and performers at a time, over a period of several months. Contemporary sources note that many members of the Brumbach Circus, including Madame Brumbach and dwarf Hansi, appeared in or worked on the film, which was shot...
Tags: Adolphe arts Bavaria Brumbach Cernik Circus communist Czech Czechslovakia Elia Frederic Kazan March Menjou performing
