Dueling Divas: Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick Sing Two Classic Versions of ‘I Say a Little Prayer’

in Music | August 12th, 2013

Dionne War­wick:

Aretha Franklin and Dionne War­wick are two of the high­est chart­ing women in music his­to­ry. Between them, they’ve made 129 appear­ances in the Bill­board Hot 100. Two of those were with the same song: the 1966 Burt Bacharach and Hal David com­po­si­tion, “I Say a Lit­tle Prayer.”

The song was writ­ten espe­cial­ly for War­wick. David’s lyrics are about a wom­an’s dai­ly thoughts of her man, who is away in Viet­nam. Bacharach arranged and pro­duced the orig­i­nal record­ing in April of 1966, but was unhap­py with the result. “I thought I blew it,” he told the Los Ange­les Times in 1998. “The tem­po seemed too fast. I nev­er want­ed the record to come out. So what hap­pens? They put out the record and it was a huge hit. I was wrong.” The song was released over Bacharach’s objec­tions in Octo­ber, 1967 and rose to num­ber 4 on the Bill­board Hot 100 and num­ber 8 on the Bill­board R & B charts.

Aretha Franklin:

A few months after War­wick­’s sin­gle came out, Aretha Franklin and The Sweet Inspi­ra­tions were singing “I Say a Lit­tle Prayer” for fun dur­ing a break in record­ing ses­sions for Aretha Now. Pro­duc­er Jer­ry Wexler liked what he heard, and decid­ed to record the song. With Franklin on piano and the Mus­cle Shoals Rhythm Sec­tion behind her, it was record­ed in one take. Franklin’s ver­sion has more of a gospel and rhythm & blues feel, with a flu­id call-and-response inter­play between the lead and back­up singers.

Released in July of 1968, the sin­gle was less of a crossover hit than War­wick­’s ver­sion — it peaked at num­ber 10 on the Hot 100 chart — but rose all the way to num­ber 3 on the R & B chart. Over­shad­owed at first, Franklin’s record­ing has grown in stature over the years. Even Bacharach likes it bet­ter than the one he made with War­wick. As he told Mitch Albom ear­li­er this year, “Aretha just made a far bet­ter record.”

You can lis­ten above, as War­wick per­forms “I Say a Lit­tle Prayer” in an uniden­ti­fied tele­vi­sion broad­cast and Franklin sings it with the Sweet­hearts of Soul on the August 31, 1970 Cliff Richard Show. Tell us: Which ver­sion do you think is bet­ter?

Relat­ed con­tent:

Aretha Franklin Per­forms ‘Respect’ Live in the South of France, 1970

The Queen of Soul Con­quers Europe: Aretha Franklin in Ams­ter­dam, 1968

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Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Read by Christopher Walken, Vincent Price & Christopher Lee

in Literature | August 12th, 2013

Of the many read­ings and adap­ta­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s clas­sic moody-broody poem “The Raven,” none is more fun than The Simp­sons’, in which Lisa Simpson’s intro tran­si­tions into the read­ing voice of James Earl Jones and the slap­stick inter­jec­tions of Homer as Poe’s avatar and Bart as the tit­u­lar bird. Jones’ solo read­ing of the poem is not to be missed and exists in sev­er­al ver­sions on Youtube.

But Jones is not the only clas­si­cal­ly creepy actor to have mas­tered Poe’s dic­tion. Above, we have Christo­pher Walken, whose unset­tling weird­ness is always tinged with a cer­tain wry humor, per­haps an effect of his clas­si­cal New York accent.

Accom­pa­ny­ing Walken’s read­ing are the stan­dard eerie wind sounds and the unusu­al addi­tion of some dis­tort­ed met­al gui­tar: per­haps an intru­sion, per­haps a unique dra­mat­ic effect. The visu­al com­po­nent, a mon­tage of expres­sive pen­cil draw­ings, also may or may not work for you.

You may wish to con­trast this pro­duc­tion with what may be the locus clas­si­cus for tele­vi­su­al inter­pre­ta­tions of “The Raven.” Of course I mean the ham­my Vin­cent Price read­ing (above), which lent so much aes­thet­i­cal­ly to The Simp­sons par­o­dy. One of my favorite lit­tle in-jokes in the lat­ter occurs dur­ing Bart and Lisa’s intro­duc­tion. Bart whines, “that looks like a school-book!” and Lisa replies, “don’t wor­ry, Bart. You won’t learn any­thing.”

Lisa’s rejoin­der is a sly ref­er­ence to Poe’s con­tempt for lit­er­a­ture meant to instruct or mor­al­ize, a ten­den­cy he called “the heresy of the Didac­tic.” Poe’s the­o­ry and prac­tice grew out of his desire that lit­er­a­ture have a “uni­ty of effect,” that it pro­duce an aes­thet­ic expe­ri­ence sole­ly through the author’s skill­ful use of lit­er­ary form. Poe may have antic­i­pat­ed and direct­ly influ­enced the French sym­bol­ists and oth­er aes­thetes like Oscar Wilde, but his assured place in high cul­ture has thank­ful­ly not got­ten in the way of pop appro­pri­a­tions of his more odd­ball tales, like “The Raven.” A peren­ni­al favorite read­ing of the poem is clas­sic hor­ror actor Christo­pher Lee’s (below), which may be the most straight­for­ward­ly creepy of them all.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Iggy Pop, Deb­bie Har­ry, Jeff Buck­ley & Oth­er Celebs Read Tales by Edgar Allan Poe

Watch the 1953 Ani­ma­tion of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Nar­rat­ed by James Mason

Find “The Raven” and oth­er works by Poe in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Breaking Bad Theme Played with Meth Lab Equipment

in Music, Television | August 12th, 2013

Last night marked the begin­ning of the final sea­son of Break­ing Bad, the AMC tele­vi­sion series that chron­i­cles the life and times of Wal­ter White, the chem­istry teacher-turned-meth king­pin. To get in the spir­it of things, Andrew Huang decid­ed to record the Break­ing Bad theme song with a gui­tar and some meth lab equip­ment. On his YouTube page he writes:

I don’t know any­thing about mak­ing meth but a lit­tle Googling let me know that if you come across a meth lab you might find, among oth­er things:

- propane cylin­ders
— rub­ber tub­ing
— paper tow­els
— cof­fee fil­ters
— lab­o­ra­to­ry beakers
— mea­sur­ing cups
— buck­ets
— plas­tic bot­tles
— fry­ing pans

Oth­er than the gui­tar, all of the sounds in this piece were pro­duced using the items above, with min­i­mal effects and some speed adjust­ments to change pitch­es.

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Orig­i­nal Audi­tion Tapes for Break­ing Bad Before the Final Sea­son Debuts

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

Bryan Cranston Reads Shelley’s Son­net “Ozy­man­dias” in Omi­nous Teas­er for Break­ing Bad’s Last Sea­son

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

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What Prisoners Ate at Alcatraz in 1946: A Vintage Prison Menu

in Food & Drink, History | August 10th, 2013

alcatraz menuWhy would you want to escape from Alca­traz when you could eat Beef Pot Pie Anglaise for lunch on Tues­day, Baked Meat Cro­quettes on Wednes­day, and Bacon Jam­bal­aya on Sat­ur­day? On sec­ond thought, why would­n’t you want to escape.

Above, we have the actu­al menu for the meals served at Alca­traz dur­ing one week in Sep­tem­ber, 1946. (View it in a slight­ly larg­er for­mat here.) Alca­traz was, of course, a high secu­ri­ty fed­er­al prison that oper­at­ed off of the coast of San Fran­cis­co from 1933 until 1963. Some of Amer­i­ca’s more noto­ri­ous crim­i­nals spent time din­ing there — good fel­lows like Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kel­ly, Bumpy John­son, and James “Whitey” Bul­ger.

As you may know, Bul­ger is now back on tri­al in Boston. After being released from prison dur­ing the 1960s, he alleged­ly re-immersed him­self in the world of orga­nized crime, before even­tu­al­ly spend­ing 16 years liv­ing as a fugi­tive, large­ly in Cal­i­for­nia. While on the lam, he amaz­ing­ly had the chutz­pah to vis­it Alca­traz (now a tourist site) and pose for a pic­ture where he donned a striped suit and stood behind mock prison bars. I have to won­der whether he had some Puree Mon­gole for old times’ sake?

via SF Gate and Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Odd Col­lec­tion of Books in the Guan­tanamo Prison Library

See a Peru­vian Prison Seized with Dance Fever as They Try to Break a Guin­ness World Record

Phi­los­o­phy in Prison: Weighty Con­ver­sa­tions about Right and Wrong

Two Prison Con­certs That Defined an Out­law Singer: John­ny Cash at San Quentin and Fol­som (1968–69)

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Read Marx’s Capital with David Harvey, and Then Help Translate His Free Course Into 36 Languages

in Economics, Online Courses | August 10th, 2013

Here’s an update to our orig­i­nal 2011 post: The social the­o­rist and geo­g­ra­ph­er David Har­vey has pro­duced a free online course where he gives a close read­ing of Karl Marx’s Cap­i­tal (1867). Often con­sid­ered to be Marx’s mas­ter­piece, Cap­i­tal is where he elab­o­rat­ed a cri­tique of cap­i­tal­ism and laid the ground­work for an ide­ol­o­gy that took the 20th cen­tu­ry by storm. Har­vey has taught cours­es on Cap­i­tal for over 40 years, both in uni­ver­si­ties (Johns Hop­kins and CUNY) and in the com­mu­ni­ty as well. Now his 26 lec­ture course is freely avail­able on the web. You can watch the first lec­ture above. (It’s pre­ced­ed by an intro­duc­to­ry, six-minute inter­view.) The rest of the lec­tures can be accessed via Har­vey’s web site, YouTube, iTunes, and the Eco­nom­ics sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

Mark­ing a new phase of the project, Pro­fes­sor Har­vey is now look­ing for vol­un­teers to help trans­late his lec­tures into 36 lan­guages. If you speak Eng­lish and lan­guages like Urdu, Ara­bic or Ital­ian (just to list a few), you can start help­ing with trans­la­tions here.

Also note that Har­vey pub­lished A Com­pan­ion to Marx’s Cap­i­tal in 2010. It’s some­thing you’ll want read along with the lec­tures.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Cri­sis of Cap­i­tal­ism Ani­mat­ed (with David Har­vey)

Hayek v. Keynes Rap

750 Free Online Cours­es

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Watch the Original Audition Tapes for Breaking Bad Before the Final Season Debuts

in Television | August 9th, 2013

“Break­ing Bad is the first sto­ry to tru­ly com­mit the full spec­trum of New Mex­i­co to film,” writes Rachel Syme in a New York­er post on the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed AMC series’ use of and effect on her home state. “The grandiose vis­tas, the soar­ing alti­tudes, the banal office com­plex­es, the Kokopel­lis and Kachi­na dolls, the seamy ware­hous­es, the marsh­mal­low clouds. The show seems to root itself deep­er in the land­scape with every new mon­tage. It has become our newest mon­u­ment.” With the con­clud­ing sea­son of the exploits of chem­istry-teacher-turned-metham­phet­a­mine-deal­er Wal­ter White debut­ing this Sun­day, Break­ing Bad fans have no doubt steeled them­selves for a tele­vi­su­al plunge back into its very own Albu­querque, which “still looks like the Wild West, a scorched, hazy, law­less place where rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism might just tip over into crim­i­nal behav­ior at any moment,” an inter­pre­ta­tion Syme deems “not whol­ly inac­cu­rate.”

To assist you in your own re-entry into Break­ing Bad’s thor­ough­ly amoral but unstop­pably com­pelling real­i­ty, we’ve round­ed up a few audi­tion tapes which let you wit­ness the ear­ly for­ma­tion of three of the show’s char­ac­ters. Every­one talks about Bryan Cranston’s star­ring per­for­mance as Wal­ter, and giv­en his ground­ed exe­cu­tion of a near-nov­el­is­tic arc of improb­a­ble trans­for­ma­tion, right­ly so. But what about his wife and even­tu­al mon­ey laun­der­er Skyler, as por­trayed by Anna Gunn? Or her broth­er-in-law Hank, the gung-ho DEA agent played by Dean Nor­ris? Or Aaron Paul as Jesse, Wal­ter’s for­mer stu­dent and cur­rent part­ner in crime? In a series so high­ly praised for the writ­ing of its char­ac­ters, you don’t want to think about just one. Or maybe your mem­o­ries of them have grown dim, in which case you’ll want to spend eight min­utes with this recap of the pre­vi­ous sea­sons before you set­tle down for the final one.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

Bryan Cranston Reads Shelley’s Son­net “Ozy­man­dias” in Omi­nous Teas­er for Break­ing Bad’s Last Sea­son

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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See Patti Smith Give Two Dramatic Readings of Allen Ginsberg’s “Footnote to Howl”

in Poetry | August 9th, 2013

We’ve brought you some choice tid­bits recent­ly from beat poet grand­dad­dy Allen Gins­berg, includ­ing his first record­ed read­ing of “Howl” and a glimpse of his anno­tat­ed col­lec­tion of pho­tographs. And we’ve also served up a few deli­cious treats from god­moth­er of punk poet­ry Pat­ti Smith, like her recount­ing of William S. Bur­roughs’ advice to writ­ers and a read­ing of Fed­eri­co Gar­cia Lor­ca.

Today, we bring the two togeth­er, in two ver­sions of Smith read­ing Ginsberg’s “Foot­note to Howl,” the orgias­tic coda to his 1955 epic. This makes so much sense I won­der why we haven’t fea­tured it before, and yet, here we are. In the first ren­di­tion, above, from 2012, Smith is backed by Philip Glass, her own Incred­i­ble Band, and some saf­fron-clad Tibetan monks. The ensem­ble con­vened in hon­or of a vis­it by the Dalai Lama.

There are doubt­less dozens of sto­ries to tell about Gins­berg and Smith. My favorite is their first chance meet­ing in 1969:

It’s Novem­ber 1969 and Ms. Smith is try­ing to buy a cheese sand­wich at the Horn & Hardart Automat on West 23rd Street in Man­hat­tan. When she finds her­self a dime short, Gins­berg approach­es her and asks if he can help. He offers her the extra 10 cents and also treats her to a cup of cof­fee. The two are talk­ing about Walt Whit­man when Gins­berg sud­den­ly leans for­ward and asks if she’s a girl.

“Is that a prob­lem?” she asks.

He laughs and says: “I’m sor­ry. I took you for a very pret­ty boy.”

“Well, does this mean I return the sand­wich?”

“No, enjoy it. It was my mis­take.”

Holy that sand­wich! Watch Smith above in Flo­rence, Italy forty years lat­er, chant­i­ng a cap­pel­la from “Foot­note to Howl” while the audi­ence claps, and howls, along. It’s decid­ed­ly rough footage, tak­en with a hand­held cam­era (cell phone?) from the crowd, but the audio is good, and it’s stir­ring stuff despite, or because of, the raw qual­i­ty.

Head over to The Allen Gins­berg Project for a few more record­ings of Smith read­ing from “Howl.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Allen Gins­berg Reads His Famous­ly Cen­sored Beat Poem, Howl (1959)

“Expan­sive Poet­ics” by Allen Gins­berg: A Free Course from 1981

James Fran­co Reads a Dream­i­ly Ani­mat­ed Ver­sion of Allen Ginsberg’s Epic Poem ‘Howl’

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

Allen Ginsberg’s “Celes­tial Home­work”: A Read­ing List for His Class “Lit­er­ary His­to­ry of the Beats”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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See a Peruvian Prison Seized with Dance Fever as They Try to Break a Guinness World Record

in Life | August 9th, 2013

Imag­ine the trail­er for this Hol­ly­wood movie:

(Shots of mus­cu­lar, heav­i­ly tat­tooed gang-bangers glow­er­ing, fight­ing, smok­ing pot, and enjoy­ing super-hot twice-week­ly con­ju­gal vis­its) 

“In a hell­ish, over­stuffed max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison in Peru…”

(Close up of Vin Diesel or Vin Diesel-type wip­ing away a tear as he bids good­bye to a neat­ly dressed, bespec­ta­cled teenage girl)

 “One man will do what­ev­er it takes to win the respect of his daugh­ter…”

 (Cut to Vin in a col­or­ful, coor­di­nat­ed out­fit, lead­ing hun­dreds of fel­low inmates in an aer­o­bics class as they attempt to break a Guin­ness World Record)

No doubt it would be godaw­ful. That’s not to say con­vict­ed kid­nap­per Ale­jan­dro Nuñez del Arco’s sto­ry isn’t inspir­ing in the orig­i­nal.

Colonel Tomas Garay, who green­light­ed del Arco’s Full Body aer­o­bics class back in Novem­ber, is pleased by the changes in atti­tude he’s noticed at Luri­g­an­cho, “a branch of hell” where drugs, alco­hol, and vio­lence were pre­vi­ous­ly the norm. Although the sport, a car­dio­vas­cu­lar work­out com­bin­ing dance, box­ing, and Tae Bo was invent­ed by a Peru­vian man, macho inmates were stand­off­ish at first. A mere eight attend­ed del Arco’s first class. By June 14, the date he attempt­ed to best the Philip­pines’ Cebu Pris­on’s world record for the most peo­ple danc­ing behind bars, at least 1179 of his fel­low inmates were rag­ing with dance fever. Talk about trans­for­ma­tive effects…

Hope­ful­ly not com­ing soon to a the­ater near you, unless it’s as an expan­sion of the five-minute doc­u­men­tary above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Til­da Swin­ton and Bar­ry White Lead 1500 Peo­ple in Dance-Along to Hon­or Roger Ebert

Pris­on­ers Dance to Michael Jack­son Tunes in the Philip­pines

Ayun Hal­l­i­day can zum­ba with the best of ’em. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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