The Weavers – So Long
An evening pause: That’s (l to r) Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman. Performed live c1951.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Touring the largest organ in the world
An evening pause: Specifically, this tour takes us from the bottom to the top of the largest pipe, and then shows us what comes out when you play it.
Hat tip Judd Clark, who provides this additional information:
Constructed between May 1929 and December 1932, the Main Auditorium Organ is the “Poseidon”, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company, and is the world’s largest pipe organ. Also included in this organ are pipes operating on 100 inches of pressure, the Grand Ophicleide being the loudest and also most famous. The instrument has an estimated 33,113 pipes and requires approximately 600 horsepower (450 kW) of blowers to operate.
The best news in the world
An evening pause: This short video is kind of a Paul Harvey “Rest of the Story.” Stay with it, it is worth it.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Cindy Cashdollar & her 1927 Hermann Weissenborn Koa wood slide guitar
Clarence Gatemouth Brown – Leftover Blues
An evening pause: Very nice. Hat tip Judd Clark.
A question for my readers: Is the embedded video below interrupted with ads?
Styropyro – The brightest laser pointer in the world!
An evening pause: Much of the electronics described here is over my head, but the final result is quite astonishing.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
Lavinia Meijer – Metamorphosis
David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World
George Winston – Thanksgiving
John Williams – The Cowboys Overture
An evening pause: It is more than a decade since I last posted this magnificent piece of music from the 1972 John Wayne film, The Cowboys. Time to post it again, because I think it makes a great start to a new year. Rather than John Williams conducting, this time we have a 2018 performance by the Stanisław Moniuszko School of Music Orchestra in Bielsko Biała, Poland, Andrzej Kucybała, conductor.
Manualist John Twomey on The Tonight Show, New Year’s eve, 1986
A evening pause: This silliness is perfect as we head into the New Year’s eve weekend.
Note: He was anticipating a Michigan victory in the Rose Bowl, which wouldn’t happen until the next day. Unfortunately, Michigan lost.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Beth Hart – Jazz Man
An evening pause: The studio this was recorded in was once a church, and that apparently gave Hart some extra inspiration.
Hat tip John Jossy.
Lex Fridman – Playing Guitar in a Self-Driving Car
An evening pause: The guitar playing is great, but if this is supposed to be a demonstration of the abilities of self-driving cars, to me it is a utter failure. The drive was on a test track, with no other cars. The car itself was probably never going faster than 25 miles per hour.
In fact, if anything this proves the impracticality of self-driving cars. Such technology might work in a completely controlled environment, but as soon as you add any random human element, it can’t work. Thus our options: we continue to drive ourselves, or we give up our freedom to drive so that all vehicles can be autonomous.
But as I say, the guitar playing is great.
Hat tip Wayne Devette.
Anne-Sophie Mutter – J.S. Bach’s Partita in D minor
Sinéad O’Connor – All apologies
An evening pause: A truly talented singer who has sometimes been her own worst enemy.
Hat tip Wayne Devette.
Voces8: J.S Bach’s Jesus bleibet meine Freude
An evening pause: In English this is better known as “Jesu joy of man’s desiring.” Nick Deutsch is on the oboe and Alexander Hamilton is on the organ.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
The Monkees – Riu Chiu
An evening pause: From their 1967 Christmas show. More information here.
Anastasia Gladilina and Sretensky Monastery Choir – Kyrie Eleison
An evening pause: The performers are obviously Russian, but they provide no English version of their name.
Jars of Clay – Worlds Apart
Kelly Clarkson – Silent Night
An evening pause: Performed live on television 2013, with the help of Trisha Yearwood and Reba McEntire.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Melinda Kathleen Reese – O Come O Come Emmanuel
An evening pause: This was first posted in February 2019. I think it bears repeating this Christmas season. As I noted then,
The video replays her singing the same thing three times. There is a good reason, as she almost appears to have begun singing as a lark, and the acoustics of the church astonish her. The repeats help bring out this amazing quality.
Helene Fischer – Feliz Navidad
An evening pause: A Spanish Christmas song, with some English lyrics, sung in Germany. Makes for a good start to this Christmas week.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Big Rude Jake & The Jump City Diplomats – Song for Lilly Christine
Tom Jones & Helene Fischer – Sexbomb
An evening pause: Performed live 2020, probably early in the year before the Wuhan panic struck.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
American Giants – Restoring a Paul Bunyan Giant
An evening pause: There are endless and wonderful ways to make a living. This is just another example.
Hat tip Cotour.
DiDuLa – Arabica
Third Coast Percussion – Madeira River
An evening pause: This music by Philip Glass, seems quite appropriate for December.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
Lidija Bacic Lille – Stop
Sam Cox – The Doodle House
An evening pause: Apparently it took two years to make this video, painting the house along the way. More information here.
Hat tip Cotour.
Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike
An evening pause: For tonight, the anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, I think this documentary created by Frank Capra for the U.S. government in 1943 is most appropriate.
Though created to rally Americans to the war effort, the film is not propaganda. It is a remarkably accurate telling of the history leading up to Pearl Harbor in detailing how Hitler was able to gain control of almost all of Europe, through lies, force, and the weak-kneed opposition of his opponents. Only with Soviet Russia and its secret pact with Germany to divide up Poland does the film fail to tell the facts thoroughly, but here it fails by omission, not lies. In the end, however, it is accurate, because the Soviet Union’s pact, intended to bring it security from German invasion, failed. Hitler had lied once again, and the U.S.S.R. became only another victim of his greed for power.
It is worthwhile for Americans to watch it now, because the same lies and greed for power is eating away at our own country from within. Any honest open-minded viewing of this mid-20th century history cannot help but see the parallels.
I should add that Capra knew how to make movies, and he made sure this history was told in a riveting and compelling manner. You will not be bored.