Vocal Harmonies: Wanting Memories

Sweet Honey in the Rock: Wanting Memories

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I am a bit surprised to be the first one to present a singing group for this week’s theme. These groups exist in many traditions throughout the world. Some use instrumental accompaniment, while others rely solely on the various sounds of the human voice. Sweet Honey in the Rock sometimes uses hand percussion, but they mostly rely on the voice alone. The biography on their website uses the pronoun “she” when discussing the group as a whole. This seems stranger if you don’t know their music. Truly, this is the sound of five voices joined as one. Sweet Honey can sing spirituals, hip-hop, jazz, and songs from various African traditions. It always sounds first of all like Sweet Honey in the Rock music. Wanting Memories came out in 1993, when the group was celebrating 20 years of making music together. By then, 21 different singers had been in the group’s line-up at various times, but always joined as one voice. That continues to this day.

Vocal Harmonies: The Prayer

Josh Groban and Charlotte Church: The Prayer

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Speaking of power ballads, here's one from 1801. No, sillies, this one wasn't recorded then. This one's a classical-pop cover of the more recent version by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli. But I like these two singers more: I present classically trained pop crossover artists Josh Groban and Charlotte Church.

I can't listen to this without tears from the sheer beauty of the vocals. Just sayin'. There's just something about Italian lyrics that make a song special, yanno?

Josh and Charlotte also win my own personal mensch props. Charlotte, for her desperate on-camera realization that her special guest, a less-than-sober Amy Winehouse, is imploding on Charlotte's variety show during a 2006 live duet of Michael Jackson's Beat It. Or maybe because she didn't bitchslap Amy on camera for that "performance."

And Groban, for his latest hit release album, Josh Groban's The Best Tweets of Kanye West, featuring hits like: "Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on" and "Classical music is tight yo."

Vocal Harmonies: Kto Winien Jest

Czerwone Gitary: Kto Winien Jest

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   Known, perhaps unfairly, as the Polish Beatles, Czerwone Gitary (The Red Guitars) mastered Fab Four harmonies and recorded superb pop songs in the mid-Sixties and beyond. Their second album sold more than a quarter of a million copies. They toured the Eastern Bloc and eventually began experimenting with exotic instruments just like their British counterparts. As late as 2007 they were still playing together, having released more than 80 albums.

     "Kto Winien Jest" (Who's Fault Is it) comes from the debut album.  It is a bitter song of lost love that may remind listeners of The Beatles' "This Boy". The singers ask "Who took away our laughter and joy and the way we held hands/ The trees sound the same, the seagulls sound the same but the wind no longer sings to us"

To see Czerwone Gitary in all their Beatlesque glory click here .

Vocal Harmonies: Scarborough Fair/ Canticle

Simon and Garfunkel: Scarborough Fair/ Canticle

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The music of Simon and Garfunkel seems to me to be the obvious place to start a week devoted to vocal harmonies. Originally inspired by the doo-wop groups of the 1950s, Simon and Garfunkel also were aware of harmony as used in folk music, and I would say that the song I have chosen may also shows that they knew at least a little about classical music as well. Let me explain.

There are three schemes of vocal harmonies that come to my mind. In close harmony, the singers are together rhythmically, but they sing different notes to make chords. This is the basis for doo-wop, and it is found in the call-and-response parts in gospel music as well. Then there are rounds. Here, different voices sing the same notes at different times, and that is where the harmonies arise from. Johann Sebastien Bach took this type of harmony to its logical extreme in his fugues.

The third scheme is what Simon and Garfunkel did with Scarborough Fair/ Canticle. The song has a main melody, (in this case Scarborough Fair), and a counter melody, (in this case, a completely different song, Canticle). Counter melodies are fairly rare in pop music, so this was a daring choice for Simon and Garfunkel. The results in terms of reception are mixed. On the one hand, the song was a hit, and a little known folk song, Scarborough Fair, became famous. On the other hand, most people tend to forget about Canticle entirely, and most covers of Scarborough Fair omit the counter melody. Personally, I would never want to be without it. Simon and Garfunkel linked these two songs, and I can never hear one in my head without the other.

Weather Report: Waters of March

Cassandra Wilson: Waters of March

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Listen to the words to Waters of March, and you may not hear why I am posting it for this week’s theme. There are a few mentions of rain, but it doesn’t appear to be the subject of the song. Actually, there doesn’t appear to be a subject, just a list of things and impressions. The music offers no particular assistance, offering the cascading gentleness that is a hallmark of Brazilian music. The key is that many of the objects named in the song are things that might be carried away in a sudden flood. Waters of March is by Antonio Carlos Jobim, and he hails from Rio de Janero. In Rio, the month of March marks the end of summer, and the month is known for sudden heavy rains. So Jobim sees this as a cleansing process which inspires a hope for spring. Jobim wrote versions of the lyrics for the song in both Portugese and English. The English version reaches for universal appeal, so it removes cultural references from the Portugese version that are specific to Brazil. Cassandra Wilson’s interpretation of the song is up to her usual high standards.

Weather Report: Hurricane

Alex Bach: Hurricane

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Being from South Florida, singer-songwriter Alex Bach probably knows a thing or two about hurricanes. So when she writes a song likening a man in her life to a hurricane we know she is talking about the destructive path he is laying.

Her song "Hurricane" appears on her 2002 album "Miles to Go" . The whole album is lovely, but my favorite thing about Alex as a songwriter is that she can put her lovely lyrics with the acoustic ballads such as this song, but can also just as easily rock your face off in the next song. I think it's quite a talent to be that versatile.

Weather Report: The Cape of Storms

Hyde: The Cape of Storms

Hyde: The Cape of Storms (Last Quarter Mix)

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So where do I sail?
A ship losing control,
My cries swallowed up, lost in the raging sea.

So where has love gone?
Will I ever reach it?
The Cape of Storms echoes the pain I feel inside.

You can't really call this J-rock; it's really a power ballad (and quite angsty, to boot) and it's sung in English. Still, it's a solo effort by Hyde, the vocalist of L'Arc~en~ciel, definitely a J-rock band. It's from his 2002 album Roentgen, released in both Japanese and English. Both versions, however, have this song available only in its original English.

To me, what really makes this song is its arrangement: Sometimes, nothing beats a full chorus of strings swelling under a heartfelt lyric to get across strong emotion. And whoever arranged this tune had a real knack for cutting back and then rebuilding the tension. For contrast, I've tucked in the piano-backed remix. It's nice, showcasing the raw vocals the way it does, but it's not nearly as powerful as the full arrangement. Hey, I guess that's why it's called a power ballad.