An evening pause: I bet you didn’t know that this music was by Sousa. I also suspect Sousa would have never guessed how this march would become so well known in the late 20th century.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: Time for another Berkeley extravaganza. This except is only a small part of the full thirteen-plus minute Lullaby of Broadway number in the movie Gold Diggers of 1935. This movie was made when the talking pictures were still new, and making films that highlighted “All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!” was the rage. It was also a time when all Americans danced arm-in-arm as one of their main forms of entertainment, so interest in great dancing like this was at its height.
Hat top Judd Clark.
An evening pause: A wonderful moment from the 1960s, performed brilliantly by actress Leigh French and resulting in some wonderful and gentle satire of the hippie culture of the time. Context is also important, because the Smothers Brothers were constantly having problems with their television censors.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: I normally dislike music videos like this one, with their fake drama and stagey lip-synched performance, but this song is so beautiful and the visuals match so well that I gladly make an exception this time, especially because I have wanted to post this song as a pause for years, but never could find a version I liked.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: A 1978 music video.
Hat tip Blair Ivey, who notes “The lyrics suggest a man asking a woman to leave her current relationship,
but the metaphor could be extended to the nascent ‘What the heck are you doing to my country?!!'”
An evening pause: A very strange instrument from the 1970s whose keys play strips of magnetic audio tape for each note. You can listen to a performance of “Nights in White Satin” on a Mellotron here. This is definitely a sound from the 1970s, used in many songs of that time.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: A warning: If you are younger than sixty, this describes your future, whether you want to believe it or not.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: I was listening to a different recording of this song by Gordon Bok, Ann Muir, and Ed Trickett from 1978 and thought it gives us a window into a gentle culture that is now dead. As the youtube webpage for the performance below states, the song was written as “a tribute to the women who took up morris dancing during the First World War, when the male mortality rate in some English towns and villages approached seventy percent.”
It is the gentle quality of this song, its words and its sound, that is generally dead in today’s culture. Almost all modern music must be loud — shouted more than sung — with a rock beat that while energetic and enthusiastic is also somewhat harsh. Curse words are normal. It is rare to hear new popular music dedicated to expressing gentle soft love.
I post this as a memorial to that lost civilization.
An evening pause: From the 1933 Hollywood musical, Footlight Parade, one of Berkeley’s most spectacular overhead dance numbers. Remember, no CGI. These are real women performing this number.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: I posted this as an evening pause a dozen years ago. Diane found it again and said it must be posted again. I agree. It is absurdly silly but I guarantee that once you watch you will never forget it. It also appears, from the comments on the youtube page, that young children — who understand the importance of silly — like it especially.
A evening pause: Let’s go downhill fast again, but in an entirely different manner.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: Performed live during her 1996-1997 Wildest Dreams tour. May she rest in peace.
Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
A evening pause: This song seems fitting on this, the anniversary of the day Neil Armstrong took the first human step on the Moon. The song however honors Mike Collins, who remained in orbit on Columbia, never to touch the surface of the Moon itself.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
An evening pause: Diawara grew up in Mali but at eighteen went to France to become an actor and performer.
Hat tip to Tom Donohue, who correctly adds, “Interesting mix of music cultures.”
An evening pause: For the weekend, some recreational activity. There are two or three cuts, but in general he makes the whole run non-stop. If you want to get your palms sweating play some of this at 2x normal speed. The location is in San Felix, Columbia.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
An evening pause: From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical Cats, based on poems by T.S. Eliot.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: This is called a battle of the drum bands, but in truth this particular performance demonstrates their ability to merge their talents into one grand show.
Hat tip Phil Berardelli.
An evening pause: Performed live 2022 during an all-Russian musical ethnic festival.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: As the first comment on the youtube page notes, “Before there was Duelin’ Banjos, there were Duane Eddy and his great sax player going back and forth.”
Hat tip Dave McCooey.
UPDATE: The first version I had embedded was removed by Youtube between the time I scheduled it and tonight. The version below is just as good.
An evening pause: Performed live, 2008. Their singing makes you listen to the words.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
An evening pause: Definitely not Perry Mason, though certainly inspired by him.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
