Juke Box Split #5

[echoone]

The next piece is quite a recent one for a "classical piece".  It's was written in 1924 by the American composer George Gershwin.  Due to it being a more recent piece it has some jazz influences.  It's quite a long piece but it's well worth listening too.

For people who have flown with the American airline "United Airlines" it might even sound familiar since for several decades the airline uses the piece (or at least part of it) as it's theme song.

I've chosen for a version performed by Leonard Berstein and the New York Philarmonic in 1979:

 

[echoone]

Now for my final classical music piece of today I've chosen maybe my all time favourite piece.  It's the "Flower Duet", a duet that the French composer Leo Delibes wrote for his Lakmé opera.  It was written in 1883 and has been used throughout the years in commercials etc...  But for me it's maybe my all time favourite piece.

I've chosen for the 2014 performance by Elina Garanca & Olga Peretyatko:

 

[echoone]

Let's make a jump to some pop music.  Due to the fact that I am a true music lover I've been to many classical concerts, opera's but also some mainstream pop artists.  Maybe it's because the fact that I truly enjoy classical music and opera's that I found Céline Dion to have an amazing voice.  I've seen her perform in Brussels, Antwerp, Arras, Las Vegas and Montréal throughout the years and even had the pleasure to meet her and her late husband. There are a lot of songs of Céline Dion I cannot stand with the biggest frontrunner being "My heart will go on".  Whenever I hear that song I just feel the need to puke, to pray to be deaf or just vanish from this earth.  Maybe it's because during it's early years it was being played over and over again, I don't know but I just hate that song so much...  Now Céline has dozens of good songs, most of them original ones, some covers.

A couple of years back her late husband convinced Céline to perform a song that she actually didn't want to sing due it being a very emotional song.  It was "Ne me quitte pas" written in 1959 by the Belgian artist Jacques Brel.  Eventually in 2011 she performed the song for the first time during her new show Céline in Las Vegas.  Although I am Belgian and find Jacques Brel an amazing singer I have to admit that I find Céline's version one of the best, if not thé best, versions ever performed.
 

I've chosen for the 2013 performance which was broadcasted on French tv.  Strictly it's a very good version but personally I'll always remember her performance of the song on the opening show of her new show in Las Vegas back in 2011 (yeah I was there, couldn't resist an invitation for the opening even though I had to fly 6.000 miles for it), it was the very first time she performed the song for the public and it was so powerful and emotional.

 

[echoone]

From Céline Dion it's only a small step to Lara Fabian.  Lara Fabian is a Belgian singer (who lives most of the time in Canada and currently holds dual citizenship) who is known mostly in Europe and Canada.  She has just like Céline a very powerful voice.
 

Back in 1999 she recorded "Adagio" in French/Italian (later also English), a song based on "Adagio in G minor", which finds it's roots to the Venetian master Tomaso Albinoni. Later her song was covered by other artists like Il Divo.

I've chosen for the Italian version:

 

 

[echoone]

Now, from Lara Fabian jumping to Iron Maiden would a a bridge to far so from the power ballads it's a good thing to make a few pitstops in between.  So let's jump to Paul Simon who wrote the fantastic "Sound of Silence" for him and Art Garfunkel.  

The song is a true classic, quite of few artists have covered it throughout the years with a heavy metal band (Disturbed) releasing a version only a few months ago.  But I've chosen for Paul Simon's performance of the song at the 10 year remembrance of the "9/11" attacks:

 

[echoone]

I've always liked Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen.  He makes very good music and he's an amazing artist which I had the pleasure to see perform a couple of times.  His list of songs is so long that it's a bit hard to choose but to continue in the "9/11" spirit from the song above I've chosen for "The Rising", the title song of his "The Rising" album which he made as a result of the 9/11 attacks.  As I virtually was raised in a family of fire fighters this song hits close to home since it tells the story of a fire fighter walking into the WTC towers.

 

[echoone]

Moving away from Bruce Springsteen I'll jump over to P!nk, an amazing American artist with loads of beautiful music.  One particular song may stick out a little bit, "Dear Mr. President" was written in 2005 as an open letter to, then, President George W. Bush.  Virtually a big fuck you to a president who, as we are being honest, wasn't the best choice for the world.

I'm not sure about the USA but in Europe, and certainly here in Belgium, the song was a huge hit for P!nk since she actually sang what most Europeans where thinking about Bush.  Weeks (May 2006) after the song was released as part of her "I'm not dead" album she came to the Belgian radiostation "Q-Music" where she performed an incredible acoustic version of the song "Dear mr. president".  This particular version of the song was such a huge success that the radiostation, P!nk's managent and the record company decided to release that particular version via an exclusive download through the radio station during the holidays of 2006/2007, it was an incredible success and the song broke all download records in Belgium.  Until this day the song keeps ending up in all kind of charts during the holidays and it remains a song that's very successful during requests.

 

[echoone]

Ok, I've covered Céline Dion, Lara Fabian, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and P!nk.  Let's jump back in time a bit with a classical song from the second world war.  While not originally from Vera Lynn she's the artist who made "We'll meet again" one of the most famous songs of the second world war.  

 

 

[echoone]

Now we've had Vera Lynn it's an easy jump to another artist who was very active during the years after the second world ward (and much much later until he died in 2004).  Ray Charles was IMHO one amazing artist who made some incredible music as a blind artist.

A song that will always be connected to Ray Charles even though he didn't wrote the song is "Georgia on my mind", the song was already 30 years old when Ray Charles recorded it in 1960 but due his version hit became a famous hit.

A 1976 version performed by Ray Charles:

 

[echoone]

You know, there are so many great artists but one of my favourites maybe be "Ol' Blue Eyes" Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra may have made so many songs but I think I choose this time for New York, New York just because I kinda like New York (except for the horrible traffic) and certainly the song :)

 

[ww_watcher]

4 hours ago, echoone said:

Let me add some off my favourite music.  I have quite a broad taste in music. So let me start with some "light" classical music. Contrary to many of us my first cd ever was actually a CD (collection) with classical music.  My first cd's were the actually the complete "Der Ring des Nibelungen" of Richard Wagner which is a collection a about 14 CD's full of classical music / opera.  The most well known part of the ring is "Die Walküre" (which lasts about 4 hours).  In these 4 hours you'll probably find one of Wagner's most well known pieces called the "Ride of the Valkyries"

 

My first CD was one I burned on the first cd burner our company bought. It was Frank Zappa's Apostrophe Album and was sometime around '93 (windows 3.1, 486DX processor, ) using the brand new mscdex multimedia extension and a protoboard equipped with one of the first PC audio codecs. 

[echoone]

Another one of my favourite songs is "Great balls of fire" from Jerry Lee Lewis.  Jerry Lee Lewis is one of the best rock and roll artists around.  Great balls of fire is by far his most famous song and while he recorded it in 1957 it regained fame when the song was performed in the iconic action movie Top Gun.
 

The original version: