Musical Interlude - BLUES WEEK
Hugh Laurie's album 'Let Them Talk' is now available in France, and after less than a week it's already #1 in the charts! Incredible isn't it? ... Or maybe not....
Anyway, it made me want to celebrate the Blues.
I just LOVE blues. Contrary to Hugh Laurie though, I did actually listen to British pop music a lot too: The Beatles, The Stones, Sex Pistols, David Bowie, The Police, The Clash, Queen, The Cure, Eurythmics and so many more. That's what my world's made of.
But not only.
My world is also made of Jazz, and Blues and it always has been. Jazz and Blues are the music genres I play on the piano. Its structure provides a great inspirational source for improvisations and musically, well, musically it's just the foundation of almost every kind of music that's played now.
Blues reaches the soul. And it rocks your body. Listen to Blues, and I dare you not to feel the irrepressible need to tap your foot on the floor at some point: it's an energy. The energy of despair but it carries such a powerful force...
So I want to celebrate the blues and I guess I could post a video of Hugh Laurie here and now. Maybe, that's what you're expecting me to do. But I won't. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely elated about Hugh Laurie singing the blues. I think it gives to his musical skills the right dimension they deserve; however, I don't know, I feel like sharing something more than just a bluesie "sound". I want to share a memory too.
When I was a little girl, my dad often took me to the movie theater. And I remember vividly the day he took me to see that incredible film: "The Rose" with Bette Midler, impersonating a stunning musical metaphor of Janis Joplin. It was a Sunday, and we went to the Kinopanorama, one of the greatest movie theaters in Paris at that time: 850 seats, amazing acoustic... Anyway, despite me being too young and... innocent? to understand eveything ;-P I was floored. But that movie, raw and beautiful, a politically incorrect ode to the "Sex, Drug and Rock N' Roll" spirit struck me as an amazing musical experience first.
I remember that, at the end of the film, we got out of the movie theater and my dad and I rushed to the first nearby record store and he bought me the LP. I listened to it, over and over, for days. And I saw the movie another (at least) two times in the immediate month that followed.
I could recite the dialogues by heart then. And I could sing every song, with all my might, like I was Bette Midler myself... yeah mock me, but I'm sure I was adorable.
Especially when I was doing this "Concert Monologue" which I realized only years later was so subversive. I loved it! I would play the record and reel the monologue off over the voice of Bette Midler, even though I didn't really understand half of it... "Ain't it just great laying there late at night in your bed waiting for your man to show up? And when he finally does, 'round about 4 o'clock in the morning... with whisky on his breath and the smell of another woman on his person... Oh honey I can smell another woman at five hundred paces. that's the easy one to catch!" ... Gee!, The throaty sound of her voice, and that accent...
And the song right after? Well do I really NEED to introduce THIS song? "When A Man Loves A Woman" is a pure gem. Initially written in 1966 by Percy Sledge, that song was listed 54th in the List of Rolling Stones magazine's 500 greatest songs of all time.
And Bette Midler's live version in that movie is just AWESOME.
God, how many times have I lost my voice singing the longing bluesie notes of that song... :-)
so ENJOY! This is my BLUES musical interlude, inspired by this Blues colored week, at least here, in France.
Anyway, it made me want to celebrate the Blues.
I just LOVE blues. Contrary to Hugh Laurie though, I did actually listen to British pop music a lot too: The Beatles, The Stones, Sex Pistols, David Bowie, The Police, The Clash, Queen, The Cure, Eurythmics and so many more. That's what my world's made of.
But not only.
My world is also made of Jazz, and Blues and it always has been. Jazz and Blues are the music genres I play on the piano. Its structure provides a great inspirational source for improvisations and musically, well, musically it's just the foundation of almost every kind of music that's played now.
Blues reaches the soul. And it rocks your body. Listen to Blues, and I dare you not to feel the irrepressible need to tap your foot on the floor at some point: it's an energy. The energy of despair but it carries such a powerful force...
So I want to celebrate the blues and I guess I could post a video of Hugh Laurie here and now. Maybe, that's what you're expecting me to do. But I won't. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely elated about Hugh Laurie singing the blues. I think it gives to his musical skills the right dimension they deserve; however, I don't know, I feel like sharing something more than just a bluesie "sound". I want to share a memory too.
When I was a little girl, my dad often took me to the movie theater. And I remember vividly the day he took me to see that incredible film: "The Rose" with Bette Midler, impersonating a stunning musical metaphor of Janis Joplin. It was a Sunday, and we went to the Kinopanorama, one of the greatest movie theaters in Paris at that time: 850 seats, amazing acoustic... Anyway, despite me being too young and... innocent? to understand eveything ;-P I was floored. But that movie, raw and beautiful, a politically incorrect ode to the "Sex, Drug and Rock N' Roll" spirit struck me as an amazing musical experience first.
I remember that, at the end of the film, we got out of the movie theater and my dad and I rushed to the first nearby record store and he bought me the LP. I listened to it, over and over, for days. And I saw the movie another (at least) two times in the immediate month that followed.
I could recite the dialogues by heart then. And I could sing every song, with all my might, like I was Bette Midler myself... yeah mock me, but I'm sure I was adorable.
Especially when I was doing this "Concert Monologue" which I realized only years later was so subversive. I loved it! I would play the record and reel the monologue off over the voice of Bette Midler, even though I didn't really understand half of it... "Ain't it just great laying there late at night in your bed waiting for your man to show up? And when he finally does, 'round about 4 o'clock in the morning... with whisky on his breath and the smell of another woman on his person... Oh honey I can smell another woman at five hundred paces. that's the easy one to catch!" ... Gee!, The throaty sound of her voice, and that accent...
And the song right after? Well do I really NEED to introduce THIS song? "When A Man Loves A Woman" is a pure gem. Initially written in 1966 by Percy Sledge, that song was listed 54th in the List of Rolling Stones magazine's 500 greatest songs of all time.
And Bette Midler's live version in that movie is just AWESOME.
God, how many times have I lost my voice singing the longing bluesie notes of that song... :-)
so ENJOY! This is my BLUES musical interlude, inspired by this Blues colored week, at least here, in France.
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