Monthly Archives: July 2023

Episode 207. Henry Wright and Pals

July 28, 2023African American Singers, Broadway, Great Baritones, Happy Birthday, In Memoriam, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Opera in Translation, Operetta, Pop Icons, Singers in Old Age, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century MusicAcey Prince, Alexander Borodin, Alfredo Bracchi, Anthony Newley, Arthur Rebner, Augusto Martelli, Bataille-Henri, Bill Evans, Biri, Bruno Martelli, Buddy Johnson, Cole Porter, Das Land des Lächelns, Dorsey Burnett, Duke Ellington, Eddie Cooley, Ennio Neri, Erich Korngold, Erich Werner, Francesco Specchia, Franco Calabrese, Franz Lehár, Frasquita, George Forrest, Gianfranco Intra, Gianni Ravera, Giovanni D’Anzi, Giulio Libano, Henry Defreyn, Henry Glover, Henry Wright, Irving Mills, Jimmy Kennedy, Joe Osborn, John Davenport, Johnny Mercer, José María Lacalle García, Joseph Kosma, Juan Tizol, Kismet, Lady Gaga, Leslie Bricusse, Little Willie John, Louis Lemarchand, Mario Buzà, Mario Cenci, Miguel Fleta, Mina, Nathaniel Shilkret, Nolan Lewis, Peggy Lee, Percy Faith, Peter Alexander, Peter Knight, Petula Clark, Ray French, Richard Tauber, Richy Nelson, Robert Stolz, Robert Wright, Romano Mussolini, Sinéad O’Connor, Titus Tee Turner, Tony Bennett, Tony Dallara, Tullio Romano, Vittorio de Sica, Vittorio Mascheronicountermelody

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Today’s episode is first and foremost a tribute to a forgotten African American trailblazer, the pop singer Henry Wright, born in 1933, who, in the late fifties, claimed Italy as his adoptive country after touring there as a vocal soloist with Lionel Hampton. With a voice as suave and seductive as any of the great crooners of the 1950s and 1960s, Henry Wright first came to international prominence as the voice on the record to which Sophia Loren performed her legendary striptease in the 1962 film Ieri, oggi, domani [Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow]. He went on to make a great impact on Italian pop music throughout the 1960s. Your fearless podcaster discovered this fascinating singer almost by accident sometime in the past year and he (that is, I) have been collecting his rare and valuable recordings which I am thrilled to share with my listening public. Many of these songs exist in earlier versions, either from the Great American Songbook, from Italian films, from early American singers of R&B, from Italian pop stars of the 1950s, even from Viennese operetta! So I had the idea of playing those original versions alongside Henry Wright’s recordings. Thus you will encounter singers like Ricky Nelson, Peggy Lee, Tony Dallara, Peter Alexander, Mina, Petula Clark, Vittorio de Sica (who in his acting days was an Italian matinee idol!) and even opera legends Miguel Fleta and Richard Tauber. It’s a fascinating episode (if I do say so myself!) and I am thrilled beyond words to introduce the seductive, charming, compelling Henry Wright to my listeners. The episode begins with memorial tributes to recently departed pop music greats Tony Bennett and Sinéad O’Connor.

Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Episode 206. Jerry Hadley

July 18, 2023Art Song, Bel canto, Broadway, Crossover, French Opera, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Tenors, In Memoriam, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Operetta, Orchestral Songs, Pop Icons, Twentieth Century Music, Twentieth Century Opera, Wolfgang Amadeus MozartAlexander Borodin, Anthony Halstead, Arthur Rimbaud, Benjamin Britten, Candide, Carlo Rizzi, Charles Gounod, Charles Mackerras, Cosi fan tutte, Dawn Upshaw, Die tote Stadt, Die Zauberflöte, Edna Ferber, Elmer Rice, Emanuel Schikaneder, Eric Dalheim, Erich Korngold, Franz Lehár, Frederick Weatherly, Fritz Löhner-Beda, Gaetano Donizetti, George Forrest, Georges Bizet, Giuseppe Verdi, Gualtiero Negrini, Henry Lewis, James Levine, Jay Gorney, Jerome Kern, Jerry Hadley, John Mauceri, John McGlinn, Kismet, Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes, Leonard Bernstein, Les Illuminations, Lorenzo da Ponte, Oscar Hammerstein II, Paul Gemignani, Paul Knepler, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Richard Bonynge, Richard Wilbur, Robert Shaw, Robert Wright, Ruth Ann Swenson, Scott Bergeson, Seiji Ozawa, Sherman Edwards, Show Boat, Street Scene, William Boughton, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Yevgeny Onegin, Yip Harburgcountermelody

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Jerry Hadley (16 June 1952 – 18 July 2007) is regarded by many as the most gifted American lyric tenor of the late 20th century. Last month he would have celebrated his 71st birthday. And today is the sixteenth anniversary of his untimely death. I knew Jerry well in the early 2000s when he was dating one of my best friends. Our friendship developed separately from that: in those years in which he was working at rebuilding his voice and career we worked together on a cross-section of his old and new repertoire. At the time of his death, he was no longer romantically involved with my friend, so he and I had drifted apart. Nevertheless, it hit me very, very hard, and I mourn his loss to this day. On that front, I have quite a few things to say about singers and mental illness, and the ruthlessness, implacability, and heartlessness of a profession which so often chews up the most vulnerable of us and spits them back out. When Jerry was at his best, his art sustained him, but the challenges ultimately became too much for him to face. But this episode is primarily a celebration: my primary objective is to present my friend at his exceptional best, in performances, both live and studio, which celebrate his voice, artistry, and spirit, performances which provided his public with some of the finest tenor singing they would ever hear, in that, or any other, era.

WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS A DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE AND SUICIDAL IDEATION.

Episode 205. Eileen Farrell: Bach/Pop

July 13, 2023Broadway, Canadian Singers, Crossover, Eileen Farrell, Full-Figured Baroque, Great Baritones, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Pop Icons, Singers in Old Age, Twentieth Century MusicAlec Wilder, Andre Previn, Bach Aria Group, Bart Howard, Bernard Greenhouse, Bob Merrill, Earl Schuster, Eileen Farrell, Erich Itor Kahn, Frank Brieff, Funny Girl, Gay Paree, Harold Arlen, Harry Shulman, I Married an Angel, Joe Wilder, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jule Styne, Julius Baker, Loonis McGlohon, Lorenz Hart, Luther Henderson, Maurice Wilk, Morgan Lewis, Nancy Hamilton, Norman Farrow, Paul Ulanowsky, Percy Faith, Pete Stowe, Richard Rodgers, Robert Bloom, Robert Farnon, Samuel Baron, Terry Peoples, The Wizard of Oz, Yip Harburgcountermelody

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Eileen Farrell (13 February 1920 – 23 March 2002) was one of the finest and most versatile singers that the United States has ever produced. She began her career as a radio singer, the star of her own program, Eileen Farrell Sings, which ran from 1941 to 1945, which offered a wide range of music from the pop songs of the era to opera. In the 1950s and early 1960s Farrell was involved with the legendary Bach Aria Group, originally founded in 1946 by scholar and philanthropist William H. Scheide, which consisted of a quartet of singers (which in Farrell’s time included tenor Jan Peerce, alto Carol Smith, and bass Norman Farrow) and a group of the most gifted instrumental soloists of the era (including oboist Robert Bloom, flautist Julius Baker, and violinist Maurice Wilk). Alongside their pathbreaking performances, they made a series of celebrated recordings for RCA and American Decca, excerpts of which are heard on this episode. Though Farrell had a huge voice, it was well-suited to the music of Bach, which she performed with suppleness, flexibility, poise, and power. Farrell may have been but a reluctant opera star, but her most long-lasting musical love was probably the Great American Songbook. Years beyond her official retirement, indeed well into her 70s, she continued to record both standards and less-familiar material, and her recordings of pop songs from the 1960s through the 1990s – buoyant, playful, perceptive, often heartbreaking and always deeply musical – form a substantial component of her recorded legacy. In this episode I contrast her performances of these two disparate styles of music, recorded over the course of forty years, to shed light on her continuing supremacy among American sopranos.

Episode 204. Roberta Alexander Sings America

July 4, 2023African American Singers, Art Song, Broadway, Comic Relief, Crossover, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century Music, Twentieth Century OperaAaron Copland, Alec Wilder, Alfred Heller, Brian Masuda, Charles Ives, David Triestram, Du Bose Heyward, Edo de Waart, Emily Dickinson, Eric Stern, Florence Price, Gary Miller, George Gershwin, George Meredith, Girl Crazy, Harry T. Burleigh, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, James Agee, James Joyce, Jerry Bock, Jerry Hadley, John Avery Lomax, John Greenleaf Whittier, John Jacob Niles, Kees Bakels, Larry Moore, Leonard Bernstein, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Old American Songs, Porgy and Bess, Reinbert de Leeuw, Roberta Alexander, Roger VIgnoles, Samuel Barber, Sheldon Harnick, Spirituals, Stephen Sondheim, Tan Crone, Thomas Hampson, Tom Lehrercountermelody

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Posting a few days early in celebration of the Fourth of July and in further recognition of the beloved American soprano Roberta Alexander, whose birthday we celebrated on Countermelody last March. Ms. Alexander has made a number of exquisite recordings over the years, many of them for the small Dutch label Etcetera. Many of these releases feature songs by the greatest American composers: Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Samuel Barber, as well as two releases featuring light classical and Broadway songs. The recordings range in date from 1976 (a live performance of Ives at the Holland Festival, in honor of the American Bicentennial) through 2009 (a live performance of Roberta as Maria in Porgy and Bess conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt). We also hear material by Berlin, Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Alec Wilder, Bock and Harnick, John Jacob Niles, and Tom Lehrer, accompanied by pianists Reinbert de Leeuw, Roger Vignoles, Alfred Heller, Brian Masuda, Tan Crone, and David Triestram and conductors Kees Bakels and Edo de Waart. Throughout, Roberta Alexander’s approach to this material is perfectly on target, revealing both pathos and a crackling sense of (often sardonic) humor, all grounded in a love of the music of her native country and wrapped in a red, white, and blue bow.

Episode 203. Jobriath and Jackie Shane (Pride 2023)

July 1, 2023African American Singers, Broadway, Canadian Singers, Drag Performance, In Memoriam, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Pop Icons, Queer Pride, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century MusicAhmet Ertegun, Bill Strong Smith, Bobby Darin, Bruce Wayne Campbell, Cheri Gage, Claude Lavoix, Cole Berlin, Dee Clark, Frank Motley, Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, Gladys Knight, Jackie Shane, James Rado, Jobriath Boone, Jobriath Salisbury, Léopold Dauphin, Oliver Hood, Rachel Yakar, Reynaldo Hahn, Robert Higginbotham, Rudy Clark, Rufus Thomas, Steve Love, Titus Turner, William Bellcountermelody

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Today’s Pride 2023 episode focuses on two pathbreaking pop artists from the 1960s and 1970s, who were undervalued or even reviled at the time in which they were active, but whose contribution, importance, and influence on today’s pop music scene is indisputable. In reverse chronological order, Bruce Wayne Campbell (1946–1983), a brilliant if emotionally unstable pianist, composer, and singer, was refashioned by a 1970s entrepreneur/Svengali named Jerry Brandt, into the would-be pop icon Jobriath. Brandt secured Jobriath a lucrative deal with Elektra Records and plastered Jobriath’s face (and body) all over the media, including a huge billboard at Times Square and trumpeted him as “rock’s truest fairy,” (in contrast to pretenders or closeted figures like David Bowie, Marc Almond, and Elton John). The relentless overexposure, coupled with the unapologetic homophobia of the rock music scene, led to a spectacular fall from grace, and Jobriath’s premature death ad the age of 36, one of the earliest victims of the AIDS epidemic. By contast, Jackie Shane (1940–2019) was raised in a loving supportive environment, and announced her true gender to her mother at the age of 13. She went on to become first a fixture on the chitlin circuit, performing alongside such figures as Chubby Checker, Little Richard, and Etta James, finally establishing herself as one of the premier figures on the Toronto music scene in the 1960s. Jackie’s career also had its ups and downs, its near-misses, and was marred by catastrophic associations with various toxic males. As a result, she finally walked away from her massive local celebrity in 1971 and never looked back. But throughout her abbreviated career and beyond, she kept a strong sense of self and never allowed herself to be used or abused. Interest in Jackie surged in 2014 with the release of an elaborate CD retrospective which was subsequently nominated for an Emmy. Jackie was philosophical about this new interest in her work, but was grateful that she had not, as she had previously feared, been forgotten. Both of these artists are generously represented on the episode with musical examples that highlight their historical importance as well as their influence on future generations of queer musical artists that extends to the present day.