JSngry

Gotta be a hit of some sort before it can gain traction. Was "Who Can I Turn To" a hit? Is it truly a standard? I would submit that is was only a bit of a hit and is only a niche standard. Looks like people mostly recorded it when they thought it was popular and then eventually stopped when it wasn't. Bill Evans liked, but of course Bill Evans would like it. So .. where is the business apparatus to keep the Leslie Bricusse legacy on the ever ascending route to sacred status? Do you really want "The Candy Man" to be around any longer than it already has been?

Memphis, process of elimination, nothing more than that.

You can look at the litany of MOR records from the middle 50s thru....whenever, and sense the almost desperate attempts to create new standards from various shows and movies, all those records with Song Title (from the ______ ________), shit you never heard of before and very seldom wanted to after. Apart from an occasional fluke like "Hello Dolly" and the ongoing stream of Mancini's, not a lot took. Tastes were changing. I mean Bricusse-Newley, a niche market. Legrand, a bigger niche, but a niche market nevertheless. How many people outside of a very fixed demographic are going to recognize those songs today. There is an industry that is fully invested in keeping the Broadway legacy alive. They are doing their job and their job is not looking for worthy additions to their Parthenon. I would also suggest that notable film scoring is well on its way to having somewhat the same. My folks actually had the novel for god knows what reason. Not sure if I ended up with it or not.

The Broadway musical was the main conduit for "success" before film and TV. The writers who had success there had a running start, which created a business apparatus to lock it in. That apparatus continues to this day Outside of that realm, though, you have Tin Pan Alley and the song pluggers. All you have to do is look at the collective early recordings of, say, Billie Holiday to see that most of those songs were drek and failed accordingly. And really, of those writers who had hits outside of the world of musicals, how many had LOTS of hits. Success feeds on itself, but until the business comes along to entrench it, that feeding is usually going to be a snack. I think the better question is not who gets to write a standard, but who gets to own one after it is written. That is who will ensure that it stays one. Staying one...I just looked at a Wiki list of Walter Donaldson songs, and most are forgotten today and the ones that aren't are the sort of songs that you are going to have to have done your homework to know about.

Charles Lloyd and George Coleman?

I don't know that anybody "gets" to write a standard. What you might get by composing a film theme or a show score is an initial chance for exposure, but after that, no. A song has to catch on with both musians and listeners, and then keep on catching on. That sort of feeds on itself. Or not.

Pharaoh's passing is being noted on the CNN main page right now, which to me is an indicator that he had more penetration into the general public's consciousness than many others of his generation.

Willie Hutch Br'er Rabbit Grace Slick

They're popular in marching bands.

We can't say we weren't told. Hopefully we listened. RIP

I wish they had more Bill Evans.

Maybe there's a way to turn a chiropractor into speaker wire!

I like it, but that means absolutely nothing.

Next month's BFT.

Lemon flavored!

Put it in a nebulizer.

Big Sister Janetta Word - Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Pants

I do that, but then I smoke the dust. THAT'S what makes everything sound REALLY good!!!

This is a good record.

Hey.

Remember in school when you had to memorize shit like Gettysburg, Hamlet, Preamble and stuff? Did you memorize separate sections, or one continuous thing starting from the beginning and adding on as you went? You knew you had it good enough for class when you could get all the way through, period. I figure that being able to start anywhere and go on is about the very highest level of learning/internalization. And good luck on that, right?

I can't recall, did they ever put numbers on the inside of the front lid? No, right?

RIP Maury Wills (who's not in the HOF?) https://www.mlb.com/news/maury-wills-dies

Dailey O'Hara - Mother, Meembles McCreedy, & Me

Flow...