Word: joplin
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...fair, not even Gershwin's legendary ego was big enough to claim more than half the credit for this astonishing outburst of melody. No sooner had Scott Joplin introduced ragtime in the late 19th century than commercial writers were figuring ways to work its kicky, irresistible beat into their songs. By 1911 young Irving Berlin could confidently assert that Everybody's Doing It (Doing It, Doing It) Now--and not just Americans either. Dukes and lords and Russian Czars were doing it too, as Berlin noted elsewhere. And a few years later, ragtime became part of the sound track...
...cultures created new elites. Jewish-American composers like Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern invented the popular song and dominated the field for a swank half-century. And as they had borrowed from Scott Joplin and W.C. Handy, so did they help bring black artists into the mainstream. Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker ran their astounding riffs on the backs of sturdy pop tunes by Jewish immigrants. This fruitful collaboration continued throughout rock's first decade, as Jewish kids in the Brill Building wrote teen anthems for the Shirelles and the Ronettes--pop's twilight of multiracial synergy...
...Janis Joplin knew that the aura of self-destruction was part of her appeal. She also knew that to her contemporaries she was much more than a rock singer. She was a tragic heroine whose character summed up all the contradictions, frustrations and despairs of life under 30. Last week, on a day that at least superficially seemed to be less lonely than most, she died on the lowest and saddest of notes. Returning to her Hollywood motel room after a late-night recording session and some hard drinking with friends at a nearby bar, she apparently filled a hypodermic...
...Kristofferson, who once complained to a friend, "How am I going to make it? I sing like a frog," to which the acquaintance replied, "But you're a frog who can write!" And write he did, penning such gems as "Me and Bobby McGee," which he gave to Janis Joplin. And Johnny Cash became an example for me, too: the Man in Black raced through the '60s on cocaine and booze, achieving greatness despite a wild chemical imbalance and a damn ugly face. Bob Dylan represented the ultimate achievement of the man-and-his-guitar dream. Thoughts of matching...
...natty, his music too produced and his lyrics just too ridiculous to be associated with the raw, sensual guitars and edgy lyrics that characterized music of the late '60s and early '70s. Well, gentle listener, you are wrong. Yes, that is Shaggy doing a re-make of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" (actually, he has two versions on the CD--the regular radio mix and an "urban re-mix"). Shaggy has committed sacrilege by performing the song and it is not any good. Presumably one of the worse songs on the CD, Shaggy has taken it upon himself...