Word: balladeer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Lightness is the key to Red All Over, which shares with current releases The Nylon Curtain by Billy Joel and Nebraska by Bruce Springstcer an emphasis on the lunacy and pathos of daily American life. In "work song," strong vocals power an emotionless ballad which is somehow Russian-flavored, evoking the Brothers Karamazov singing capitalist work hymns. The music is effective and lively, the repeated lyrics "I've got a quite important job with many things to do my stenographer is pretty and my wallpaper is new" come across with just the right amount of subdued pride to make "work...
...this, her only novel, Porter overreached herself. She possessed neither the scholarship nor the profundity to write a fable of the decline of the Western world. But as a short-story writer, she achieved the violent grace of a folk ballad. Something atavistic, something frontier-Texan came out in her. The sentences cut, like the wife's knife stabbing her husband's lover in "Maria Concepcion," like the farmer's ax splitting the head of his tormentor in "Noon Wine...
...police who now lives in Toronto, was frequently on the Soviet Ambassador's guest list and recalls how Andropov used to borrow the police force's gypsy band. With a clear tenor voice, Andropov would join in song fests. He was especially fond of a sentimental Hungarian ballad about a crane leaving its beloved mate to fly to foreign lands...
...profit, and manuscript after manuscripts chronicling the Beatle legend found its way into print. Most, hastily written, were garbage. Thankfully, the editors of the authorities rock magazine Rolling Stone took their time and only recently released a collection of interviews with and essays on the most controversial Beatles. The Ballad of John and Yoko is a captivating work, at once passionate and thought out, loving and objective. And it features some of the best writing on rock to be found anywhere...
Through first-hand testimony and accounts of those who knew him well, The Ballad of John and Yoko admirably describes Lennon's battle. All the bitterness of the Beatles break-up pours from the "Lennon Remembers" interview. Cheat Flippo provides voyeurs with a delightful inside look at Lennon in "retirement." And Robert Christian enthralls with his inimitable analysis of Lennon's songs...