Fever: The Best of Little Willie John [Rhino, 1995]As with the otherwise radically dissimilar Otis Redding, this depthless bantamweight's unique soul power was old beyond its years--a gift of his gene pool more than his life experience. He imbued longing, anxiety, arrogance, pain, lust, and generic escapism with a self-possession that sounds spiritual even if it's entirely somatic. When he cut the shrewd "All Around the World," the bereft "Need Your Love So Bad," and the consoled "Home at Last," he was 17 years old. When he cut a "Fever" so fervid Peggy Lee couldn't top it with a strip-tease, he was 18. When he last charted, he was 23. When he died in the penitentiary, guilty of manslaughter but too good for whatever befell him inside, he was 30. A
>Lee's iconic cover version of John's 1957 R&B hit, which came out in June '58, gave her a #1 on the Billboard and made the song an instant standard with countless cover versions. "Fever" was a great deal of fun for her to make as she played with the tempos and altered some of the lyrics while adding a hep beatnik swag to the song. It also marked Lee's triumphant return to Capitol after five years with Decca--in both cases the change of record labels had been caused by a fallow artistic period. She left Capitol in 1952 after going three years without a hit and when they refused to let her record "Lover" the way she envisioned it. Lee was given an offer by Decca and accepted on condition that they let her record "Lover" her way, which they did. It made #1 and was her first hit since 1949's "Bali Ha'i.">Much like Frank Sinatra, Lee struggled to find a path out of the '40s and into the '50s, when lush romantic ballads had fallen out of style and commercial now meant goofy novelty tunes. This now set the stage for another of her defining works, 1953's Black Coffee, the first-ever concept LP made. Its depressive mood felt almost bracing in an era of air pudding such as "A Guy is a Guy" and "Come On A My House."
>By 1957, Lee's relationship with Decca appeared to be a spent one. She had done decently enough, given them a couple of hits, but her sound had stagnated, rock-and-roll was rapidly taking over the charts, and Decca was in decline by the late '50s, with most of their profits coming from the country music division. Lee thus returned to Capitol, still considered a world-class label, and would remain there for 15 years although she never said much about her decision to come back to them.>"Fever" gave Lee a renewed lease on life--its timing was somewhat fortuitous for rock-and-roll appeared to be a spent force by the summer of 1958 and the "old guard" of pop was back in the top ten, with Perry Como, Doris Day, and Patti Page all having big hits. Nonetheless, Capitol declined to put the song on an LP and kept it as a single--the general industry practice was that the more goofy kind of songs were targeted at children and young teenagers with the "serious" material going on LPs aimed at the adult audience. "Fever" became the kiddy anthem of that summer while parents bought Lee's albums.
>>131291877Decca was a premier label in the 40s but their housewife pop schlock mill subsidiary Coral ended up taking over their focus.
Fairport Convention: Liege and Lief [A&M, 1970]Because the rhythm section has oomph and the singer soul, their pursuit of the Pentangle down the wooded path of jigs and ballads isn't entirely disastrous. But it sounds more like liege than lief to me. Traditional or original, these songs are either momentary escapes--that is, dances--or tales of common folk battling fate and the class system to something less than a standoff. Matty Groves outfucks Lord Donald, but Lord Donald kills Matty as well as his own wife; the Deserter is betrayed by comrade and sweetheart, then saved--to be a soldier--by Prince Albert. And the music, inevitably, reflects this fatalism. B-
Shut the fuck up Millerfag
>>131292059>Shut the fuck up Millerfag?
>>131292059This is the guy who gets triggered at every 50s pop discussion
>>131291795she had some crazy shit happen to her over the years, when she first arrived in LA in 1937 at 17 years old she nearly got sold into prostitution when some dudes talked her into coming with them to a sketchy place that was actually a brothel, but some Good Samaritan rescued her. when she was riding from North Dakota to California some dude tried to molested her on the bus but a Mormon lady also rescued her. she was just an inexperienced small town kid then who didn't know a lot about the world yet.
>>131291795>She left Capitol in 1952 after going three years without a hit and when they refused to let her record "Lover" the way she envisioned it.A bit odd for Capitol as they had been founded on the principle of artistic freedom.
>>131291804>>131291795Thank God she didn't sign with Columbia. That would have gone all sorts of wrong.
>>131291804>old guard" of pop was back40s names?
>>131292105It's not just me
>>131292105I bet he'd rather prefer more race bait and fantano threads, lol
>>131292597^This.
>>131291667huh
>>131292322Kween
bump
