Novel Music

Subject: Novel Music
From: John Hardly
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 05:54 PM

If you are anything like me you get a kick out of finding allusions to the music you love in the books you read...

F'rinstance, I loved "Cold Mountain" -C Frazier, and the use of the music in the book made it an even more pleasurable read.

Novel regular Alex Cross plays jazz piano and Alex Delaware plays guitar (and his SO is a luthier -- who, when we last left her, may have been selling out her designs to a Japanese manufacturer! horrors!)

Of course, there's always the "cringe factor" when the music is handled badly!

Anyway, I've come across two new ones in the last year;

The best book I "read" in 2002 was "Beach Music" -- Pat Conroy. The reason "read" is in quotes is because I listened to it as an unabridged book on tape -- which, in this case made it even better -- GREAT reader.

The book refers to Beach Music to which I was introduced in the '60's by my brother who went to University of South Carolina. For those of you who don't know, "Beach Music" is not Jan&Dean and the Beach Boys. It was a combination of R&B and whatever else kids could "Shag" (dance) to.

In the book Conroy also has the Red Clay Ramblers playing at party -- wish I coulda been there!

I highly recommend "Beach Music".

The other book is "Fatal", the latest medical suspense novel by Michael Palmer (better plots that Robin Cook -- often better character development as well). The main character is a fiddle-playing doctor. Not a great novel, but entertaining as junk novels go.

Subject: RE: Novel Music
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 07:03 PM

"Lark Rise to Candleford" surprised me by quoting "Waste Not, Want Not" which used to be frequently played on a local radio show.

James Baldwin's novels and short stories sometimes quoted blues songs, spirituals, etc., and even took their titles from songs, e.g. "Go Tell It on the Mountain," "If Beale Street Could Talk" (The latter song doesn't seem to be in the DT, but I know the Red Clay Ramblers recorded it.)

"If Beale Street could talk, if Beale Street could talk,
Some married men would have to take their bed up and walk."

Thomas Hardy wrote a hilarious short story called "Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir."

Here are a couple of pertinent articles:
Music and Thomas Hardy
Music in the Works of Thomas Hardy

Subject: Lyr Add: BEALE STREET BLUES (W. C. Handy)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 07:14 PM

Copied from http://www.heptune.com/lyrics/bealeblu.html:

BEALE STREET BLUES
(W.C Handy)

I've seen the lights of gay Broadway,
Old Market Street down by the Frisco Bay,
I've strolled the Prado, I've gambled on the Bourse;
The Seven Wonders of the World I've seen,
And many are the places I have been,
Take my advice, folks, and see Beale Street first!

You'll see pretty browns in beautiful gowns,
You'll see tailor-mades and hand-me-downs,
You'll meet honest men, and pickpockets skilled,
You'll find that business never ceases 'til somebody gets killed!

If Beale Street could talk, if Beale Street could talk,
Married men would have to take their beds and walk,
Except one or two who never drink booze,
And the blind man on the corner singing "Beale Street Blues!"

I'd rather be there than any place I know,
I'd rather be there than any place I know,
It's gonna take a sergeant for to make me go!

I'm goin' to the river, maybe by and by,
Yes, I'm goin' to the river, maybe by and by,
Because the river's wet, and Beale Street's done gone dry!

[Transcribed from the Dixieland Jazz Group of NBC's Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, from vocals by Lena Horne, recorded June 25, 1941. From Lena Horne, L'Art Vocal, vol. 11. La Selection 1935-1941; DK 025.]

Subject: RE: Novel Music
From: Gypsy
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 10:10 PM

weeeeeeeeeeeeellllll for older stuff, James Michener used an awful lot of Child in "The Drifters". Was what sparked my interest to begin with.

Subject: RE: Novel Music
From: Sam L
Date: 09 Jan 03 - 09:58 AM

At work I heard Dick Estell, NPR's "radio reader" go through an entire book about musicians in New Orleans, pronouncing the word Zie-Decko.

Subject: RE: Novel Music
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 09 Jan 03 - 10:58 AM

The food was hot. And limp. The soup was thin. The rice clumped, the vegetables sagged. The pork was undercooked. "You like this?" I asked him.

"Yeah, it's great. They don't use any MSG either."

"You need to try some of Mama's cooking someday," I told him.

"What's the difference?"

"Same as between Debbie Gibson and Judy Henske."

"Which is Debbie Gibson?"

"This stuff."

"Oh. He took a deep mouthful of the food, chewed it experimentally. "So who's Judy Henske?" he asked.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...He started tentatively, getting the feel of the controls—the way you're supposed to. He gave it too much gas coming out and the Plymouth got sideways on the dirt. The kid didn't panic, just turned the wheel in the direction of the skid and powered right out.

"Wow! This bad boy's got some juice!"

"All right, don't get us arrested now."

"I'm okay," the kid said, leaning into a curve. "Where do we go now?"

"We're done for tonight," I told him. "Just head on back."

The Plymouth reached the main road. The kid gave it the gun, the torque jamming him back against the seat. He adjusted his posture, a grin slashing across his face.

"Okay if I take the long way?" he asked.

I nodded. The kid pulled off the highway, found a twisting piece of two-lane blacktop. he kicked on the high beams, drew a breath when he saw they were hot enough to remove paint...

He had the Plymouth wailing by then, flitting over the surface of the blacktop. We might as well have been in the West Virginia mountains with a trunk of white lightning. I reached into the glove compartment, popped a cassette into the slot, turned it on. "Dark Angel" throbbed through the speakers, darker than the night outside, with more hormones than the monster engine.

"Jesus!" the kid yelled. "What's that?"

"That's Judy Henske, kid."

He gunned the Plymouth around a long sweeper leading back to the highway, a huge grin plastered across his face, Henske's sex-barbed blues driving right along with him.

"I gotta try some of that Chinese food." he said.

—excerpted from pages 78, 81-82 of the Vintage edition of Down In The Zero, by Andrew Vachss ©1994.

Check out Andrew Vachss (and Judy Henske)here.

BJ