Labels:
music
During the 1940s, Dan Duryea developed an odd, almost fetishistic on-screen forte beating women. His deviate sexuality was first exploited by Fritz Lang in The Woman in the Window (1944). He padded the stick-thin actor with a double-breasted suit, bowtie and straw boater, a get-up that was, for awhile, his signature ensemble. Suitably decked out, Duryea struck the pose that would become his trademark: lounging in a doorframe, worrying a toothpick, a sly smile creeping across his face. "I'm just naturally what they call a cynic, honey," he drawls to co-star Joan Bennett. When Duryea paws his way around Joan's apartment, looking for the hidden murder weapon so he can blackmail her, Lang stages it like a gross sexual imposition. Bennett stands immobilized, panting slightly, while the insouciant Duryea rummages through her drawers, fondles her clothes, daubs himself with her perfume, and relishes her helplessness. Later, when Joan tries to feed him a poisoned scotch, Duryea wises up and turns malevolent. "You drink it," he seethes. When she demurs, he pops her with a curt backhand and throws her to the bed. "How could you lie like that to Pappy," he sneers. He takes her money and dismisses her with a flick of fingers off his chin. Duryea had the patent on all these rude bits of business.
In Lang's Scarlet Street, the actor upped the ante, having his way with sexy Joan, then blithely slapping her around. His caddish behavior struck a chord especially in women. Duryea started getting fan mail by the truckload, most of it from infatuated females. Producers developed more inventive ways for Duryea to backhand distaff co-stars. These outbursts always caused Duryea's Brilliantined hair to come unglued, spilling long blond strands down his billboard-sized forehead. He was one of the first stars to act with his hair. This stylish affectation provided tonsorial precedent for, among others, rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis.
Beatings administered by Duryea were so telegraphed that Universal's publicists felt it necessary to offer a disclaimer when promoting Black Angel (1946): "Something great has happened in Hollywood, land of great things. Beautiful June Vincent met dangerous Dan Duryea and escaped unscathed. Prolific Dan, beater of such gorgeous femmes as Joan Bennett, touches nary a strand of June's blonde hair in Universal's Black Angel, a story of guys and gals some good, some bad. Maybe it was mother love that moved Duryea to confine his poundings to honky-tonk pianos for this is June's first role since the birth of her baby. Quien sabe?"
- Eddie Muller, Dark City, New York, 1998, p.162
Labels:
movies
Thursday music corner: Nina Hagen (b. East Berlin, 1955), 'the Godmother of German punk', was an operatic prodigy as a child, and began her career as an actor appearing in her mother Eva-Maria Hagen's films. At age 21, her stepfather's East German visa was revoked, and she followed him to Hamburg in West Germany, where she quickly gained a record contract, formed the Nina Hagen Band, and released her first album in 1978.
Naturträne (Nature's Tear) is one of two songs on the self-titled album solely written by Hagen, and was the album's third single, after the hit TV-Glotzer (White Punks on Dope) and Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo. The recording below is taken from a December 1978 live German TV broadcast from Dortmund's Westfalenhalle, and features Hagen's sweeping vocal range, her operatic shriek, and a high-camp sense of humour.
Hagen has to date released 17 studio albums, the most recent being 2022's Unity. In December 2021 German Chancellor Angela Merkel chose Hagen's best-known youthful East German pop tune, Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film), for her farewell military band concert.
Nina Hagen - Naturträne (live, 1978)
Labels:
america
Thursday music corner: Cream were an English rock 'power trio' that released four studio albums from 1966 to 1969, and the platinum-selling Live Cream in 1970. Consisting of Jack Bruce (1943-2014), Eric Clapton (b.1945) and Ginger Baker (1939-2019), the band impressed fans with their musical virtuosity and charted a course for the 'supergroup' bands of the 1970s, formed by members who formerly belonged to other successful groups.
Cream scored seven UK top 40 singles, including the highest-placed I Feel Free (#11 in 1966), the gold-certified Sunshine of Your Love (#25 in 1968), and White Room (#28 in 1968). Sunshine of Your Love and White Room were huge American hits, reaching number 5 and 6 in the US charts, respectively.
Deserted Cities of the Heart appears on Cream's third studio album, 1968's Wheels of Fire, which was a double album - the first disc being studio recordings and the second live recordings. It was one of the album's four tracks co-written by Bruce with performance poet Pete Brown, including White Room.
Cream - Deserted Cities of the Heart (1968)
Labels:
music
Thursday music corner: Lucinda Williams (b. Louisiana, 1953) is a Grammy-winning American singer-songwriter. She released her first solo album, Ramblin' On My Mind, in 1979 but it was her fifth album, 1998's Car Wheels On A Gravel Road that cemented her popularity with American audiences, being certified gold, being ranked as the album of the year by the Village Voice magazine, and won the Grammy award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1999.
The lively barroom-rock of Real Love appears on Williams' ninth studio album, 2008's Little Honey, which was her first album to reach the US top 10. The album, which features guest appearances by Elvis Costello, Susanna Hoffs, Matthew Sweet and Charlie Louvin of Louvin Brothers fame, was nominated for the Best Americana Album category in the 2010 Grammy Awards. Real Love is the opening track and first single from the album.
Williams, speaking to the Guardian in June 2023 about her recovery from a stroke in 2020:
I’ve done a lot of rehab and technically I’m still in recovery. The brain and body have a remarkable capacity to heal themselves, but I still shuffle when I walk. I haven’t been able to play guitar, which is the big thing. My husband keeps telling me I need to play through the pain. The actual playing is good exercise. I’m still doing shows with my band, just differently, and I can sing fine. Some people tell me I’m singing better than before I had the stroke.
Lucinda Williams - Real Love (2008)
Labels:
music