Woody Guthrie - Cabaret Style

Subject: Woody Guthrie - Cabaret Style
From: curmudgeon
Date: 05 Apr 03 - 03:26 PM

NPR's Weekend Edition did a feature on German cabaret singer Hans Wenzel who has been taking, with Nora Guthrie's permission, some of Woody's lyrics and transforming them into the style of the Wiemar Cabaret. For more details,
click here

I think I liked it. You?

-- Tom

Subject: RE: Woody Guthrie - Cabaret Style
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Apr 03 - 03:54 PM

I like what he's done - especially on 'Ticky Tock'. Since tunes aren't the same as the arrangement, the ones he fit to the lyrics would suit an acoustic folkie treatment as well as cabaret style. I do have a bit of a hard time understanding what he's singing, although if I hear someone enought to get used to their accent I usually don't have a problem.

Subject: RE: Woody Guthrie - Cabaret Style
From: curmudgeon
Date: 05 Apr 03 - 04:02 PM

As I understood the interview, Wenzel has recorded the songs in both English and German. He does admit that his only knowledge of English comes from Woody's songs -- Tom

Subject: RE: Woody Guthrie - Cabaret Style
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 01:20 PM

Does this mean that someone has turned Woody's songs into songs that sound, now, as if they were written by Kurt Weil? That's almost as bizarre as Rounder Records putting together their CD that SAMPLED great trad singers and sounds and hodge-podged 'em together in the name of modernity and just doing it simply because you can do it now. Let's clone a 7-headed calf too---and send it around the world to exhibit and make millions for the cloner saying, "Everyone has a right to make an artistic living !"

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Woody Guthrie - Cabaret Style
From: curmudgeon
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 06:51 PM

Art - Take a look at the site and listen a bit. Remember that Nora gave her permission to use lyrics for which Woody had not fitted a tune. I do think, that Woody, with political beliefs similar to Weill and Brecht, might have approved -- Tom