My ship's aglow with a million pearls

Today would have marked the centenary of Walter Matthau, and also the 90th birthday of Richard Harris. Former President Jimmy Carter (still with us) blows 96 candles out (if he has the puff), and eminent former ITN newsreader Sandy Gall is also having a "knees-up" at 93; other celebrants in the usual hotch-potch include George Peppard, Stanley Holloway, Randy Quaid, Tom Bosley, André Rieu, Brie Larson, Sandy Gall, Youssou N'Dour, Laurence Harvey, Earl Slick, Donny Hathaway, Keith Duffy, Harry Hill, Paul Dukas, Theresa May, Stella Stevens and King Henry III...

...and our Patron Saint of Niceness, Dame Julie Andrews (who is 85 today)!

By way of a celebration, how about a lovely medley of Kurt Weill songs sung by the Great Dame herself, with Andre Previn tinkling away at the ivories?

Julie Andrews - It Never Was You/My Ship

My ship has sails that are made of silk
The decks are trimmed with gold
And of jam and spice
There's a paradise
In the hold

My ship's aglow with a million pearls
And rubies fill each bin
The sun sits high
In a sapphire sky
When my ship comes in

I can wait the years
Till it appears
One fine day one spring
But the pearls and such
They won't mean much
If there's missing just one thing

I do not care if that day arrives
That dream need never be
If the ship I sing
Doesn't also bring
My own true love to me
If the ship I sing
Doesn't also bring
My own true love to me

That'll do nicely.

Many happy returns, Dame Julie Andrews DBE (born Julia Elizabeth Wells, 1st October 1935)

Economics vs love

Monday again. Yuk.

Never mind, eh? To cheer us up on this Tacky Music Monday we have the combined charms of today's birthday girl Miss Gemma Craven, who is (remarkably) 65 years old, and the marvellous Millicent Martin to cheer us up - together on one of Alan Jay Lerner and Kurt Weill's lesser-known numbers (from one of their rare flops Love Life):

Millicent Martin and Gemma Craven - Economics

Fabulous!

Happy birthday, Gemma Craven (born Rita Gemma Gabriel, 1st June 1950)

Show me the way to the next whisky bar

Thirty years ago today, the world lost a remarkable woman. Lotte Lenya, perhaps most famous in modern culture for her icy portrayal of one of the best-ever Bond villains, Rosa Klebb, was a survivor from a very different age when she came to the world's screens in From Russia With Love. Her true roots were in the decadent Austro-German world before the Nazis, the Berlin of Isherwood, Brecht and Weill.

From Zero G Sound blog:

"The voice of Lotte Lenya - filled with a bittersweet tone, slight imperfections, and that unmistakable accent - is something you either love or hate. But decades later, the former wife of Kurt Weill still has a voice we can't forget. Simply put, nothing compares to Lenya."

So let us without further ado celebrate that fragile instrument with just a few of the Brecht-Weill songs that she made famous...

Lotte Lenya - Seeräuber Jenny (Pirate Jenny)

Lotte Lenya - Alabama Song

Lotte Lenya - Surabaya Johnny

Lotte Lenya (18th October 1898 – 27th November 1981)

Show me the way to the next whiskey bar

Idol and inspiration for so many of my favourite artists - Kander & Ebb, Marc Almond, Scott Walker and David Bowie to name but a few - the genius that was Bertolt Brecht was born 110 years ago today.

A poet first and foremost, Bertolt Brecht's genius was for language, and he was prolific in his expression of this talent. Amongst his classics was The Threepenny Opera, which gave birth to one of the 20th Century's great standards Mack The Knife, and a later collaboration with Kurt Weill, Mahagonny famously upset the Nazis with its decadent Left-leaning sympathies.

Brecht's influence can be seen in the cinema - filmmakers as Lars Von Trier, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Jean-Luc Godard were influenced by his ideals and his style, but it was this same subversive quality that began to upset his adopted homeland of America in the McCarthy witch-hunt era, and he ended up living the rest of his life in Communist East Berlin.

But his legacy carries on well into the 21st Century - Marianne Faithfull recorded his Seven Deadly Sins and continues to perform his works, and Patti Smith included an evening in tribute to Brecht in her "Meltdown" series of concerts in 2005 [which we went to see - it featured Marc Almond, Antony of the Johnsons, Dresden Dolls, Tilda Swinton, Tiger Lillies, Neil Finn, Sparks, Fiona Shaw and Martha Wainwright on the bill, and it was fab!].

Enjoy this performance of one of the sleaziest songs from The Threepenny Opera performed at the 2006 Tony Awards - by none other than our own Alan Cumming duetting with... Cyndi Lauper! Genius, indeed.

Tony Awards 2006 - Threepenny Opera

Bertolt Brecht on Wikipedia