During even Grammy we have spoken recently , Crystal Gayle, not the interpreter of the soundtrack of one of the finest films of FF Coppola's One from the Heart , delivers one of his most hits "Do not It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". Close your eyes and enjoy. Well I know it's the variety, but good ...
Crystal Gayle & Tom Waits: This one's from the Heart
This moment is rather curious. Crosby, Stills and Nash, three players against the symbolic culture of the late sixties, have the best album of the year Grammy in 1977.
few years ago, CSN had the finesse to create "protest songs" to the poetic lyrics but sophisticated accessible melodies and catchy. They built their composition four major genres: folk, rock, country and pop. The skillful weaving their voices to different tessitura became their brand image. They succeeded commercially where Dylan has failed. We see here in Tuxedo chapters before doing the showbiz disciplined as children. What happened between Woodstock (69) and this time 77? Their careers are in decline, they live on their image and evoke humor who has not given up, Neil Young.
Equally interesting are the nominated albums: - Aja Steely Dan of comes after reaching the musical form that Fagen and Becker are at 10 years: a sophisticated groove rock seen by a monocle ... jazzy Intelligence not hurting anyone. - JT of James Taylor caressing the last of the U.S. charts with the hit opportunistic "Your Smiling Face" last throw of the kidneys before dark. - Hotel California Eagles of the big box of the year, what would have become CSN, variety dylanienne that flatters the American way of life. - Rumors of Fleetwood Mac, album iconic music Californian also huge cardboard, produced by an English blues band that has crossed the Rubicon. And music from the movie Star Wars - it was also true that year!
To touch briefly the context of this period, both sides of the Atlantic are buffeted by the wave punk past two years (Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned, Jam ... on English Television, Richard Hell, the Heartbreakers, Ramones, Talking Heads, Mink Deville ... U.S. side), epiphenomenon in financial terms, earthquake ideological Rick Wakeman says that after punk, it became impossible to continue what had been done before. End of term for many groups: Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull ... orientation or popular variety Santana, Chicago ... But here, we do not care. The protection seems thick.
Everyone knows there is a time when the musical art ceases to be a tool of protest, a subversive appeal, decrypting a look, a light to the soul. The music becomes a commodity calibrated reflected more concern about the perception of the broadcast. It calls it Pop.
There was rock history in this passage where those who embodied the subversion allowed themselves heavily seduced by the songs of the facility, the fabricated variety rock and destroyed hope. 77 is the final course, the point of no return, it is also the name of the first album the Talking Heads.
American Justice - The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Dylan and the oracle which was undoubtedly grabbed her frail silhouette interpret one of his most poignant, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll . This is the story of a racist crime in the southern United States, a two-tier justice and a compassionate protocol full of trickery announcing many other compositions dylaniennes denouncing the unjust U.S. justice like the famous Hurricane.
fourth track of side B of The Times They Are a-Changin ', master's third album released in January 64, this song tells of an incident that occurred a year earlier in Maryland. Zanzinger William, son of master planter alcoholic, angry that his insult bourbon comes with delay, then pack a black servant, Hattie Carroll. She died in hospital. The ruling condemns Zanzinger just six months in prison for the unfortunate suffering from high blood pressure and would have died instead of a brain hemorrhage due to abuse dealt out by Zantzinger under the weight of his blows.
Dylan insists that the trial would have been different if the criminal had not been rich with political connections (high office relations in The Politics of Maryland) and the victim of a poor woman "who just Cleaned up all The Food From The Table ". Dylan ends up full of irony: justice, fully egalitarian imposes the same sentences for all ("even get Properly Handled The Nobles"), severely condemns ("Strongly handed out") to six months in jail the culprit.
The melody is captivating and the lyrics of accuracy and lucidity to make you shiver and have enclosed a link to this post allowing to read the French translation.
The document below is exceptional, Dylan performed this song during the "Steve Allen Show . This excerpt gives to see the Dylan quintessential early sixties. The camera ventures timidly to observe the reactions of young audiences, just as captivated by the work embarrassed by the subject it addresses. Dylan forces them to revisit their convictions and the vision they relate to the contradictions of a country with an open mind and pretend reformer is still a chimera.
Didier Boudet
PS: I suggest you read the interview by jazzman Hank Jones with the newspaper Le Monde on music and American society.
