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JSngry

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Posts posted by JSngry

  5. Billy Eckstine

    in Artists

    Posted

    Overwhelming? You mean, like, intimidating? To who? Or more, like, wow, things will never be the same after this! 

    His pitch never faltered. His time never wavered. The vibrato was always in tune, no matter how wide it became. 

    That's more than can be said about pretty much everybody.if the lived long enough. Even some/most "legends".

    All this noise about Great Interpreters Of The Great American Songbook is just that -noise - unless Billy Eckstine is given equal and serious  consideration. 

  6. Billy Eckstine

    in Artists

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

    You have to be in the corner of the genre that is attractive to the younger audience rediscovering it. If you aren't, won't be.

    Questlove, are you listening?

    I also find it telling that the by-now antiquated Jazz at Lincoln Center has more or less ignored male vocalists that do not have some sort of overt "blues" image. But not TOO blues. 

    Oh, Willie Nelson. Sorry. I forgot.

    There's something weird about the way that "jazz" overall processes deeper-voiced male vocals. Joe Williams being the exception that more or less proves the rule. And Joe Williams didn't always go low...

    R&B once had a place for the deep voice, but no more (please prove me wrong!). Like everything else, the bottom is either exaggerated and distorted or else it ain't there at all.

    Something very weird going on. What is going on with our natural depth, deepness. Everything is going upupupupup 

    SNAP!!!! 

     

     

  9. Billy Eckstine

    in Artists

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Larry Kart said:

    I, for one, am not trying to "erase" anyone, and I resent the  kind of "1619 Project" use of the term. 

     

    Whoa, dude. Nothing being aimed at you. 

    However, erasure does occur, and it doesn't take a "1619 Project" to be aware of it.

    Find another word if you like, fine with me. 

  14. Billy Eckstine

    in Artists

    Posted

    hmmm... I just hear him singing the songs. And singing them quite well.

    a more salient point is how both Motown and Stax probably had an idea of breaking him into the "adult contemporary" market of the day like so SO many White artists of his generation - and failing. That's a complicated issue, because the labels themselves no doubt were as unfamiliar to that network as the network was with them. But it also raises the point - why did no other labels want to do with Eckstine what they were doing with all the White artists they were promoting? Did Eckstine want to work with black-owned and/or operated labels? Or did they have no interest in bringing him into their fold? Or maybe both?

    It's obvious to me that given a decent song (which was far from always on both the Motown & Enterprise offerings) and appropriate arrangements/productions (ditto), he was more than capable of delivering a spry and WONDERFULLY executed pop record that would have easily fit in on the same stations that were playing contemporary Sinatra and Andy Williams and Jack Jones and all that ilk of excellent singers making records for their contemporary marketplace. Maybe the R&B elements were a few years early for that audience? But maybe not? How would you know if you don't get it there for an airing? Programming Directors? A lack of mutual contacts? God knows, the possibilities are more than a few...

    When considering Billy Eckstine's ongoing erasure, it's not enough to end the story with his last Mercury record. No. He made SIX records LPs after that - three for Motown, three for Stax/Enterprise. The voice never deteriorated, it was always there. With the right promotion, he could have stayed visible/viable, as did Arthur Prysock. Hell, my dad constantly listened to an AM station that aggressively worked that format, so I know what that market was into. You give them a once-in-a-while thing like that "Living Like A Gypsy", it would fit right in, on the "groovy" end of their programming.

    But it seems like Billy Eckstine just got forgot. How can that happen? I'm sure the answers are many, but are "we today" being complicit? The model today seems to be for one person to do the homework, step up and just fucking OWN the publicizing of the legacy, like Ricci Riccardi is doing with Armstrong, and like Stanley Dance did with Ellington. Become the "official" voice of the product/artist in these wonderfully modern times of ours. Who's going to do that for/with Billy Eckstine? Probably not his biographer, because from what I've read of it, he has a total misunderstanding about what his last records were trying to achieve, and is outright scornful of his last record (the one with Benny Carter, which I find to be nothing but awesome, one of the great Old Guy On Their VERY Last Legs records).

    This should not be happening.

    KOCA (1240 AM, Kilgore)  would have definitely played this, except for...what?

    17 hours ago, HutchFan said:

    Wasn't (at least some of) that "backlash" in response to a photo in Life (or some other, similar nationwide magazine) in which a (white) woman is shown affectionately touching Eckstine on the arm? No kissing. Just a bit of eyes and touching his sleeved arm.

    150225-billy-eckstine-979x1024.jpg

     

  20. Billy Eckstine

    in Artists

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

    When Eckstine's vibrato got REAL wide in later years I couldn't take it.

    Didn't bother me. It seemed a function of aging. The depth of the voice was still there, as was the  pitch and the timing. 

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