by Michael Barrett | Jan 9, 2017 | Song of the Day
Happy New Year Everyone. Just a few days ago I was visiting Gabriela Lena Frank at her farm in Booneville, California. Gabriela was the featured composer of a recent Nyfos Next concert at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, and we’ve become friendly over the past...
by Jack Viertel | Jan 7, 2017 | Song of the Day
On the Dorothy Fields’ website, “A Cow and a Plough and a Frau” is described as the low point of Fields’ career as a lyricist, which naturally sent me scurrying to find a recording. Luckily the original cast album CD of Arms and the Girl, from which the song comes,...
by Jack Viertel | Jan 6, 2017 | Song of the Day
Gospel music and the Civil Rights movement have often aligned, especially beginning in the late ‘50s when Reverend Martin Luther King became the face and voice of the movement. Back in the ‘40s, however, the link was not so clear. That didn’t deter lefty Jewish...
by Jack Viertel | Jan 5, 2017 | Song of the Day
Among pop singer-songwriters Randy Newman stands out in many ways, but most especially in his ability to write for characters nothing like himself. The protagonists of his songs are a rogues’ gallery worthy of Charles Dickens or Ring Lardner. They don’t know who they...
by Jack Viertel | Jan 4, 2017 | Song of the Day
NYFOS’s well-known motto is “No Song Is Safe From Us”, but I sometimes wonder if there are some songs from which NYFOS should be kept safe. Case in point: Leiber & Stoller’s “Idol With the Golden Head.” recorded by The Coasters in 1957, just as the rock and roll...
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