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A star turn by Carrie Compere buoys this overburdened bio-play of music legend Sister Rosetta TharpeBY: GEMMA WILSON | Updated: November 29, 2019 FacebookTwitterPinterestShare

Carrie Compere’s voice is enough to make you a believer, which would make her character in Shout Sister Shout!, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, very happy. The new Tharpe bio-play by Cheryl L. West, co-created with director Randy Johnson and now running at Seattle Rep, traces the arc of this musical visionary, from her days as a teenager finding her voice in church, to her death as “the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll” in 1973. In between, Tharpe and her electric guitar pioneered the blend of gospel and blues, sacred and secular, that would become the foundation of rock music.

Inspired by the 2007 Tharpe biography of the same name by Gayle F. Wald, Shout Sister Shout! covers, by necessity, a staggering amount of ground. There’s Tharpe, 18 years old, singing with her mother, evangelist Katie Bell Nubin (the equally golden-voiced Carol Dennis), then marrying a Reverend who stifled her gifts. Tharpe, free from her marriage, playing major night spots like the Cotton Club. Touring the country, releasing record after hit record, playing Carnegie Hall. Partnering with singer Marie Knight, suffering in the wake of losing that partnership. Even deciding which plot points from the play to mention here feels like both too much and too little, a stone skipping over the surface of a life but never diving under the surface—too much about what she did, too little about who she was. 

It’s no surprise that the music is the real star of this show, each of the 20-some songs a bundle of beautiful energy that got the Rep’s opening night audience talking back and clapping along in a way rarely seen at a formal regional theater. Compere, with a voice that both relaxes you into your seat and launches you out of it, leads the cast of phenomenal singers, backed by a top-tier, on-stage band (though they’re mostly hidden behind a floor-to-flies screen of what look like 3D-printed white guitars, the stage design by GW Skip Mercier mostly neutral to receive Robert Wierzel’s lighting design and Kwame Braun’s projections, a clever narrative efficiency measure). 

It’s astonishing to realize how big Tharpe was at the height of her fame in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and how little remembered, how her innovations—even some of her songs—are attributed by history to men like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Twenty-five thousand people attended her 1951 third wedding-slash-concert at a baseball stadium in Washington D.C., a promotional stunt to boost her sagging career. Ebony magazine covered it.

Compere’s performance is luminous, and this story is one we should all know in our music-loving, American bones. But West’s script repeatedly falls into the eternal trap of bio-plays: clunky exposition, shoehorned in instead of integrated via natural language or design elements. Bio-pics have the visual advantage of scene cuts that easily skip viewers around in time, period clothes, cars, etc. immediately signal when and where we are. On stage, it’s trickier to keep your audience rooted in time and space, but West and Johnson don’t seem to trust audiences to fill in easy logical gaps, to put together context clues about time passing or what a relationship between two characters might be. That leads to some heavy-handed information-delivery: “God brought me through a lot in these 58 years,” Rosetta tells her husband, near the end of her life. “And you been with me, Russell, the last 22.” 

For me, I’d choose emotion over exposition every time. Choosing which moments to speed through and which to savor, not to mention which to include at all, is the battle here. Tharpe’s speculated relationship with Marie Knight was barely investigated; the unspeakable tragedy Marie suffered zipped through so quickly it barely registered. 

Such a broad script sets actors up for overbroad performances and a lot of capital-A Acting, though not everyone is tripped up—ensemble members Alexis Tidwell and Christin Byrdsong, in particular, found lovely, subtle human moments in their various roles.   

The most meaningful moments in Shout! are the ones that tell us a lot without telling us anything directly. When Rosetta, famous and beloved, offers a song at a church, not only is that offer rebuffed, the pastor then delivers to the congregation: “Scripture says worship and praise him in song … cause He is worthy. Nowhere does it say sing jump blues ‘cause you the one tryin’ to be worthy, glorifying yourself instead of the lord on high…”

It’s heartbreaking. It’s infuriating. It’s a lifetime of conflict between the rigid morality of Tharpe’s religious upbringing and the spiritual purity of her creative joy, and it tells us much more about her than the facts and figures that make up her obituary.

Shout Sister Shout! runs through December 22 at Seattle Repertory Theatre. 

Pam WindsorContributor Hollywood & EntertainmentI’m a Nashville-based music and entertainment journalist.

It’s been…more than 20 years since their biggest charting hit, but the Canadian super group known for their fun, quirky songs like “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” and “If I Had $1,000,000” can still rock a major music venue. They did a lot of that this past summer while playing to packed crowds across the U.S. as the opening act for the Hootie & the Blowfish reunion tour.

“It was a really good, supportive vibe between the two bands,” notes Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson. “The guys were great to us and we had a lot of fun together. I think we ended up playing to more than 800,000 people over the course of the summer.”

Known for their freestyling approach to live performances, no two Barenaked Ladies shows are ever exactly alike.

“We do a lot of spontaneous, improv moments in the show,” Robertson says. “It’s important to me to connect with the audience and not just with, ‘Hey Chicago!’ I want people to leave knowing I was playing for a specific audience whether that be Los Angeles or Nashville or Columbia, South Carolina. My goal is to have people leave the place happy they spent the money to come see us.”

The crowds seemed pretty happy this summer. Show after show after show, thousands were up on their feet, singing – nearly word for word – to BNL classics like “If I Had $1,000,000.”Today In: Business

Barenaked Ladies has sold more than 15 million albums and while “One Week” was the group’s biggest hit (topping the charts in 1998), Robertson says some of their other songs are even more well-known.

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“Yeah, that was our biggest charting single and went to No. 1, but I think maybe the “Big Bang Theory” (the theme song to the popular TV show) has had a larger reach and broader audience even though it wasn’t a charting single. And “If I Had $1,000,000” was never a single, and yet everybody seems to know it.”

As with all of the group’s songs, each one has its own, unique story. “One Week” was a comic song full of pop-culture references from the late 90’s (X-Files, LeAnn Rimes, Harrison Ford, etc.), that nobody ever expected to take off quite like it did.

“If you’ve seen our shows you know we have a lot of freestyle rapping and that’s how “One Week” was written,” Robertson explains. “I freestyled into a video camera, then I edited out some of the verses. But that song was written in about three minutes. And all of those pop culture references were exactly what was going through my head at the moment I wrote it.”

He laughs, then goes on to add, “Maybe I should do that more often because it’s my only No. 1.”

The “Big Bang Theory,” was also written very quickly. Robertson wrote it while taking a shower and had to call his wife into the bathroom to write down the lyrics, so he wouldn’t forget them.

And that song about a “million dollars” was written long before the band ever came together.

“I was 18 years old when I wrote it, so it was a very silly notion that I would ever actually be a famous songwriter. I wrote that song on a bus on the way home from music camp where I was a counselor. I was just trying to keep the kids from going crazy on the long two-and-a-half hour bus ride home. It was full of specific lines about stupid things that happened at camp just to entertain the kids. And then I thought, there’s something here. If I can find the right silly things to talk about, I think it’ll resonate with people. So, that was the genesis of it.”

Interestingly enough, that summer music camp was where Robertson first met Steven Page. The two became friends and would form Barenaked Ladies as a duo, later adding additional members. During the band’s first decade together, BNL built a following in their native Canada, then began getting attention in the United States. By the end of the 90’s, they were known internationally.

Success continued into the next decade with a steady stream of new projects and albums. Then, in 2009, Page left the band by mutual agreement. The announcement followed a difficult year that included Page’s arrest on drug charges, a plane crash involving Robertson, and other challenges.

Today, Page tours as a solo artist, while Robertson and his fellow band members continue as the Barenaked Ladies. In March of 2018, everyone came together for the group’s induction into Canada’s Music Hall of Fame, but there are no plans for any type of reunion with Page and the band.

“There are no plans to do anything together,” Robertson says. “We decided to move in separate directions and we’re happier than ever and enjoying our career more than ever. So, there’s no interest in going backwards.”

In the ten years since, Barenaked Ladies has continued creating new music. Their most recent album Fake Nudes, was followed by an acoustic version called Fake Nudes: Naked, featuring the same innovative songwriting and exceptional musicianship that has always defined the group.

Robertson says some 30 years after it all began, he’s having more fun than ever before.

“More important to me than the notion that I still luck into some catchy lines and get an interesting turn of a phrase occasionally, is that I still love it. And I love it more now because it’s not accompanied by the same sort of stresses and pressures that it used to be (when the band was at its peak). When I’m writing new material, I’m looking to impress exactly three people, and they’re in my band already. And the way we perform together has an easy, off-the-cuff, strength to it.

The group is currently working on new music and has already announced plans to tour in the United Kingdom in 2020. No word yet on a possible tour in the U.S. or Canada. One thing’s for sure though, BNL fans can definitely look forward to a new album in the new year.

“We’ve got a ton of songs already written and we’re planning to record this winter,” Robertson says.

Then, with his usual good humor, he goes on say, “I can only assume it will be amazing!”

No doubt.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out some of my other work here.

Pam Windsor

I’m a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee. My work has appeared in AARP, American Way, American Profile, Country Weekly, DeSoto Magazine, and dozens of other magaz… Read More

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From Jimmy Scott, to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Adam Levine, and even Hendrix—the movie star’s musical connections are as impressive as his movie accolades.

BY DOM NERONOV 29, 2019

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Joe Pesci–whether he likes it or not–will always be known for his darkly funny (like a clown?) onscreen persona. His signature black humor, which is always cut with insecurity and rage, earned him an Oscar in 1991, and has made him a cornerstone of American cinema. This year, the actor was convinced to return from his decades-long retirement to star alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. But The Irishman isn’t Pesci’s only big artistic endeavor of 2019. The actor is also putting out a jazz album this month called Pesci…Still Singing. That’s right, Pesci is a jazz singer. He sings! Related StoriesThe True Story of Joe Pesci’s Irishman CharacterThe True Story of Jimmy Hoffa’s Death

The movie mob boss, who was a child performer, has been crooning for just about as long as he’s been acting. And, like his character in The Irishman, Pesci’s music isn’t over-the-top aggressive or comically acerbic. His old-fashioned jazz albums, for the most part, are tender, playful, and sincere. They hail from an eclectic jazz history that includes the predictable influences like Frankie Valli, but also more esoteric artists such as the seldom-remembered blues vocalist, Jimmy Scott. We’ve come to know Pesci on screen as an Italian-American angry man. But what’s made Pesci such an enduring presence in Hollywood for so many years is not just his ability to accurately portray violent psychopaths onscreen. It’s his range. Irishman, for the first time since perhaps Raging Bull, gives Pesci a chance to showcase his subtlety. That’s exactly what we can see in his music career, which connects to hallmarks of jazz music and big band classics. Pesci may not ever get recognition for it–but he’s got some serious range.

Pesci’s presence in the music scene goes all the way back to the early ’60s. A Jersey-born kid of a working class Italian-American family, he’s partly responsible for the success of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons–Pesci actually introduced a few of the guys to singer and songwriter Bob Gaudio, who would go on to write many of the group’s biggest hits. There’s even a scene in the Jersey Boys musical about it.

Throughout the ’60s, Pesci made a name for himself in the Jersey music scene, playing guitar in groups like Joey Dee and the Starliters, an early rock and roll outfit that also hosted a young Jimi Hendrix as guitar player for a brief moment. Pesci put out his own solo album in 1968. This was before Raging Bull, before Goodfellas, before the actor was even on Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese’s radar. It’s called Little Joe Sure Can Sing. It’s a collection of covers of pop songs from the era, like the Beatles’ “Fool on the Hill,” “Fixing a Hole,” and the Bee Gees’ song, “To Love Somebody.” His voice, as expected, is high pitched and commanding–pretty much exactly what you’re probably imagining as you read this. It doesn’t sound like anything special, but Little Joe does put the famously crass movie star in a different perspective.

Pesci earned himself an Oscar nomination in 1980 for his performance in Raging Bull, going on to win the Supporting Actor award for Goodfellas in ’91, then appearing in hugely successful pictures like Casino, the Lethal Weapon series, and Home Alone. The actor’s last significant role came in 2006 as a glorified cameo in The Good Shepherd, one of Robert De Niro’s directorial efforts. Pesci later performed in the poorly-received Love Ranch alongside Helen Mirren in 2010. He almost showed up in the John Travolta Gotti biopic from 2018–even claiming to have gained 30 pounds to play mob enforcer Angelo Ruggiero–but the role was cut and Pesci sued the production for $3 million. We haven’t really heard from the guy at all in the past few decades, unless you count his Snickers commercials from 2011. That’s because the actor actually retired from the industry in 1999 to focus on his music career.

“Little Joe” would continue to put out albums over the next few decades under different names. In 1998, he released an album following the success of My Cousin Vinny, called Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You. That’s his character’s name from the movie. Unlike his other albums, this one’s a raucous, satirical project that sounds like a coked-up version of Dean Martin. My favorite is the obscene breakup song “Take Your Love and Shove it,” which is every bit as mean and offensive as Cousin Vinny from the film. The opening lyrics of the song are, “Why don’t you take your love and shove it up your big fat ass / you know you’re the reason we’re through!”ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOWSPONSORED BY AMAZON STUDIOS

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Then came the “Joe Doggs” era, yet another rebranding of the actor’s enduring pop culture reputation. Pesci, who is famously contentious toward the press (he refused to speak at all during a recent Irishman event) apparently intended to keep the identity of “Doggs” a secret during the release of Falling in Love Again, his album with notable jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco in 2003. It’s a legitimate jazz album, full of big-time musicians from the scene. Unlike his covers or the parody music in his My Cousin Vinny album, Falling in Love Again is a display of Pesci’s serious commitment to the medium. This isn’t the sort of gushy, elevator muzak you hear in Starbucks from smooth jazz guys like Dave Coz or Kenny G. Pesci’s understated tone on the album sounds less like a schmoozy lounge singer and more like an instrument on the band stand. If you can get past the Goodfellas visuals that may be playing in your head while you listen, it’s actually pretty impressive to hear.And the album coming out following the release of Irishman seems to be more of this kind of music, at least based on the song that’s been released so far, which features Adam Levine and legendary trumpet player Arturo Sandoval.

Whether you’re into Pesci’s music taste or not, it’s clear the actor has a real respect for the craft. Pesci has spoken at length about the influence of the late vocalist, “Little” Jimmy Scott. Probably most recognized for his appearance in Twin Peaks, Scott made a huge impact on Pesci’s career from a very early stage. He’s the reason Pesci put the “Little” in front of his own name for his first album.ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

Scott had a rare genetic disorder called “Kallman syndrome” that altered his adolescent growth and gave him an unusually high singing voice. Scott was a prominent figure in jazz music in the early ’50s, appearing on Lionel Hampton records and even providing vocals for Charlie Parker. In Scott’s biography, which was written about in a United Press article from 2003, Pesci said about the late singer, “He’d listen to me and encourage me. Some days he’d disappear for days at a time, but when I caught up with him … he’d smile and welcome me into his world. … We’d sing together nonstop for hours, sometimes all night. … He became my guru. I became his shadow.” Pesci’s reverence for the little-known singer in endearing, and in the clip below, it’s plain to see the influence Scott made on the actor’s musical disposition, with both of them putting an emphasis on phrasing and tone in their singing.

Pesci…Still Singing drops on November 29, shortly after the premiere of The Irishman on Netflix. With all the reports of how resistant Pesci was to appearing in Irishman, it’s not clear if this is the new golden era for the longtime performer. To me, 2019 seems like a swan song for a 76-year-old artist who may be a bit more interested in returning to music than anything else right now.

The talent that has surrounded Ozzy Osbourne over the years is astounding, so imagine getting the call from The Prince of Darkness that he wants to work with you on a new album. That’s what happened for Andrew Watt, and in a new interview with Billboard the guitarist reveals how his collaboration with Osbourne for the upcoming Ordinary Man album came about.

Watt, who has become an in demand songwriter and producer in the pop world, comes from a rock background, having previously been part of California Breed, a short-lived project with Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham. But his time with Osbourne actually started with an idea he got after learning Post Malone had purchased an Ozzy photo that had been hanging up at the Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles. Feeling a connection between the two acts, he reached out to Ozzy’s daughter Kelly to see if the iconic rocker would be into a collaboration with the rock-loving rapper.

Eventually, the collaboration took place, but Ozzy took an interest in doing more music with Watt and tasked him with making a full album specifically for Ozzy.

“I was like, that would be amazing, but can I do this? I picked up the phone and called up Chad Smith,” recalled Watt. “I said, ‘Dude, Ozzy just asked me to make an album for him. Are you down to do it?’ And he said, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? When?’ Then I called up Duff McKagan from Guns ‘n Roses and he said, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? When?'”

According to Watt, he, Smith and McKagan worked up their Ozzy album in four days, presented it to Osbourne who called it “cool,” then had Osbourne call the next day to ask when they could start writing.

“I sound like I’m making this up, but he comes over the next day, and we made Ozzy’s entire album from top to bottom — all music, guitar solos, all vocals written — in four weeks,” said Watt. “It’s the proudest of anything I’ve ever been, because it brought the 12-year-old kid out of me again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the pop music that I make, but this is what I feel like I was born to do: play rock guitar. I got to be fuckin’ Randy Rhoads in 2019.”

Earlier this year, Osbourne had high praise for his latest work. “I’ve made a new album and it’s helped me get back on track. I was just lying in my own self-pity for months. It’s the greatest album I’ve done,” said the singer.

Ozzy added, “If it wasn’t for making this record I would still be on traction, thinking, ‘I’m going to be lying here forever.’ I’ve missed music so badly. My fans are so loyal and so good. Up until making the album I thought I was dying. But that got me off my arse.”

The singer concluded of his time with Watt, “The album was all finished in four weeks. I said to Sharon that I didn’t feel like I’d made an album because we haven’t ended up screaming at each other.”

So far, Osbourne has released the songs “Under the Graveyard” and “Straight to Hell,” with the latter featuring a guest turn from McKagan’s GN’R bandmate Slash. While an official release date has not been announced, Ozzy’s Ordinary Man album is expected to arrive in January.

Read More: Watt, McKagan + Smith Worked Up New Ozzy Album in Four Days | https://loudwire.com/andrew-watt-duff-mckagan-chad-smith-worked-up-ozzy-osbourne-album-four-days/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

New song is the latest single off her upcoming album Miss Anthropocene

BySUZY EXPOSITO 

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Grimes dropped a new electro-rock song titled “My Name Is Dark” on Friday. Written, produced and engineered by the artist herself, the track is the latest single from her album, Miss Anthropocene.

Set in a cyberpunk dystopia colored by climate change and rapidly progressive technological advancements, Grimes has toyed with an array of characters in her latest songs: from an robot soldier in the war on humans (“We Appreciate Power” featuring HANA”), to lovesick space cowgirl (“So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth”) and Earth personified (“Violence” featuring i_o).

In “My Name Is Dark,” Grimes lets loose her inner party monster, ready to be numbed by whatever substance she can get her hands on. “The boys are such a bore/The girls are such a bore,” she sing-songs along to a gritty guitar riff. Blanketed beneath layers of ambient noise she purrs, “I don’t need to sleep anymore/That’s what the drugs are for.”

Miss Anthropocene is due for release February 21st via 4AD.

Miss Anthropocene Track List

1. So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth (Art Mix)
2. Darkseid feat. ?PAN
3. Delete Forever
4. Violence feat. i_o
5. 4ÆM
6. New Gods
7. My Name Is Dark
8. You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around
9. Before The Fever
10. IDORU

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow famously asserted in 1835 that “music is the universal language of mankind.”

But experts long dismissed the idea that music itself has any universal features.

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Nov 27, 2019

“If you just look at the surface features of the audio, there tends to be a lot of differences,” says Max Krasnow, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard University.

Now, a new study from Harvard University that looks past superficial aspects of music provides the latest evidence that Longfellow was right: music is indeed universal – and in more ways than one.

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The study published last week in Science comes from what the researchers call the “Natural History of Song,” a pair of databases containing music in 28 languages from 315 different societies in 45 countries around the world. Some of the music dates back more than 100 years.

The project suggests that lullabies, religious songs, healing songs and love songs exist in every one of the 315 societies observed.

And those song types share characteristics across different societies. For example, the researchers say lullabies are generally slower and more soothing with simpler rhythms.

Those common musical threads make sense if you think about how music affects the brain, says Psyche Loui, associate professor of music at Northeastern University, who studies the neuroscience of music.

“If we hear soothing sounds, the brain relaxes and heart rates decrease,” says Loui. “Maternal bonding is so fundamentally important across all cultures, and that’s what the music is tapping into: it’s a way for mothers to change the physiology of infants.”

The connections between music and its functions may be universal as well, the Harvard researchers say. Their study found that people who listened to songs from unfamiliar cultures were often able to correctly guess what kind of song they were hearing – so listeners could identifya lullaby or a dance song – whether they had musical training or not.

In fact, the study found greater variation within individual societies than between them.

“Everybody’s musical repertoire contains high formality and lower formality,” Kransow says. “Everybody’s musical repertoire contains high arousal and low arousal.You might imagine that maybe there are some cultures that explore one part of that space and another culture that explores a different part of that space. But that’s actually not what we find.“

Krasnow refers to the human voice as mankind’s “first instrument” and says understanding the common elements of music could lie in studying the origins of song. He uses lullabies as an example.

“Our idea was that [the lullaby] was one of the primary contexts that actually caused music to evolve in our species,” says Krasnow. “Infants can’t solve their safety problems on their own. What they need is the attention of a caregiver in order to solve that problem for them.”

“As far as we can tell,” Krasnow says, “infant-directed song seems to be a human universal.”

But the lullaby isn’t alone in that regard.

The research team has replicated some of the listener experiments in parts of the world where English is not commonly spoken, Krasnow says, hoping to determine whether listeners in those countries would make the same conclusions about the music.

“And so far, the evidence looks like the answer to that is a resounding yes,” he says. “It seems like the musical ear is the same all over the world.“