Songs That Tell Stories

Is anyone else having trouble with youtube? Grrr. Haven't been able to get anything but 'internal errors' from it for 48 hours. Even clicking on your links give me the internal error message.

Anyway, a wonderful song that always makes an audience smile: The Tennessee Stud.

Youtube is working fine for me.

The song sounds somewhat muffled, compared to my vinyl album.

This is truly horrible but Joan looks like Tiny Tim in this picture.

I met Tiny Tim at a radio station. He was wearing a shirt with a ball-point pen in the pocket that had gone through the washing machine. He had a blue streak down the front

That's a funny image. Was that before or after Miss Vicky?

There are several great versions of this song. I have always considered this to be the definitive one.

Love all your balladeer songs, edgar, especially Cool Water. Fata morgana/mirage. Thanks for the memory, Texas.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – John Cusack will portray Edgar Allan Poe in "The Raven," a fictional thriller set during the last five days of the author's life.

The story follows Poe as he is forced to partner with a detective in search of a serial killer who has kidnapped his fiancee and has gone on a murder spree that mimics his works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16T4PQYYg2w

I memorized The Raven, in the tenth grade. For many years thereafter, I would bore peole by launching a recitation, uninvited. These days, I get it all confused early on. Which is all for the best, I suppose.

Here's another version from The Alan Parsons Project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSQz_LQ6Kak

and more from Poe, care of Alan Parsons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiWB_MAuT0w&feature=related

but, if you like something more melodic with a vocal track you can understand, sung by a handsome man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcfYDM3kQA

While I am drooling over Steve Balsamo, I would like to post a pair of performances of a song that really tells a story. I think I posted them before, but they are my favorite performances of Gethsemane from the Andrew Lloyd Weber-Tim Rice collaboration, Jesus Christ Superstar.

Both Steve and Colm Wilkinson are great singers and both starred in the musical although Colm was Judas (to his mother's dismay). The two men are of different generations, with Colm old enough to be Steve's father. One is from Ireland and the other from Wales. Both sing with emotion, although they express it differently. Both could be used to teach young singers stage presence and emotion. I think Steve is a high baritone while Colm is a tenor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rre_BXxC0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4omWMMibRuE

Here's one I bet takes you way, way back, Tex.

Tweedle O-Twill by Gene Autry >>(volume's real low)

This tells a dramatic story, from the writing and singing of the divine Maddie Pryor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWzPiGHd_Y

I have not had time to listen to the last four or five songs. I plan to do so this afternoon.

I met a girl who sang the blues,
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just turned and walked away.



Her bio in pictures.

http://www.biography.com/featured-biography/janis-joplin/photos.jsp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPlrps0hDmg

I was a huge fan of Janis Joplin. Cheap Thrills is still one of my alltime favorite albums. Can't tell you how disillusioned I was when she died. Never heard that version of her song.

I like The Fabled Hare.