An evening pause: Performed live by Terri Clark, Sara Evans, Crystal Gayle, The Highwomen, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, Jennifer Nettles, Dolly Parton, Tanya Tucker, Carrie Underwood and Gretchen Wilson at the 2019 Country Music Awards.
An evening pause: Actually, the song is the least interesting thing about this dance number from Ship Ahoy (1942). Stick with it to see the dance interplay between dancer Powell and drummer Rich.
A evening pause: Performed live December 3, 2014 at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Air & Space Museum in Virginia. They call this a flash mob but it isn’t, since the crowds clearly know what is about to happen. The music however is wonderful, and makes for a nice start to the holiday season.
An afternoon pause: We are all too busy right this moment with turkey, friends, family, and socializing. Here Louis Armstrong tells you what it all means, really.
An evening pause: From the opera The Merry Widow. If anything, Rieu knows how to put on a good show. And it helps that his Austrian audience understands the lyrics.
An evening pause: The music is by Ennio Morricone. She is playing a theremin, which is played without any direct contact by the player. The antennas sense the positions of the hands and fingers.
An evening pause: This Postmodern Jukebox version does Michael Jackson’s song in the style of 1930s jazz.
I remember the passion for this song when Jackson first released it in 1982, including crowds forming on the street near Times Square to watch the music video. Yet, I have always wondered why. To me the song and video has always seemed quite uninteresting, almost boring. This version, however, I think brings it to life much better than Jackson. The two dancers are especially good.
An evening pause: From the Broadway musical Pippin.
The words from this song mean more and more to me, with each passing year.
Here is a secret I never have told.
Maybe you’ll understand why.
I believe if I refuse to grow old
I can stay young till I die.
Now, I’ve known the fears of sixty-six years.
I’ve had troubles and tears by the score.
But the only thing I’d trade them for Is sixty-seven more…
Chorus:
Oh, it’s time to start livin’.
Time to take a little from this world we’re given.
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all.
And believe it or not, I see this also as a fitting song for Veterans Day.
An evening pause: A live performance at the White House. As I watched I couldn’t help feel sorrow that these same performers are probably so partisan and filled with hate that they would never do the same for a Republican president, especially Donald Trump.
An evening pause: From American Bandstand with Dick Clark, October 13, 1964. Perfect in anticipation of Halloween. And yes, believe it or not it was a pop hit in the mid-1960s.
A evening pause: The Jimi Hendrix song, played on a customized gayageum. I do not think the Koreans who created this instrument ever expected this kind of music to come from it.
An evening pause: They call this a flash mob, but that’s not accurate. These divers did not mysteriously appear here to move in unison in order to surprise someone. They all planned it together.
Nonetheless where they are and what they do is beautiful. I especially like when they coordinate the pointing of their dive lights.
Hat tip to Diane Zimmerman, who also discovered Hackett was performing in a Tucson concert tonight, so that is where we are, even as you watch this video.
An evening pause: From the 1936 movie adaptation of the Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein Broadway musical Showboat. While some of the visuals are a bit overstated and feel a bit preachy, this is still the best movie version of this song I have seen. Rather than strut about with big visuals, the film focuses on Robeson, who sings the song introspectively, as if it is something he is thinking.
A bit of trivia: The film’s director was James Whale, the man who made the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein.
An evening pause: Hat tip to Edward Thelen, who continues to be the one evening pause suggester who tries to find sources other than youtube. Competition is a good thing, and Google and youtube need some competition.
Unfortunately, there was no way to embed the video shown at the Brighteon link, so sadly I still had to use youtube.
An evening pause: The title means “You Want to Be American”. The song was written in 1956, and is “about an Italian who affects a contemporary American lifestyle, drinking whisky and soda, dancing to rock ‘n roll, playing baseball and smoking Camel cigarettes, but who still depends on his parents for money.”