[Above: portion of letter from Aaron Copland to Harold Spivacke, Chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress. Original in the Library of Congress's Aaron Copland Collection.] [Below, click Play button to begin Appalachian Spring, the seventh section. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left -- a row of little vertical [...]

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The great tangled rope of popular music (American and otherwise) includes so many disparate strands that to speak of it as a single “thing” invites ridicule: show tunes and jazz, bluegrass and ragtime, country, folk, rock, metal, rap, and hip-hop… And then what about “easy listening”? and popular classical music, like Gershwin’s and Copland’s? New [...]

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[This is the second of two posts about the popular song "Fever." Part 1 was a couple days ago, here.] As I mentioned in Part 1 of this “Fever” mini-series, the song’s lyrics and pulsing rhythm (and reputation!) seem to lead immature and/or lazy performers down sexual pathways they haven’t really earned the privilege  of [...]

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[This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with appeal across the generations. This post will be broken into two parts; Part 2 will appear in a few days is here.] As a kid, I once read a “funny” comic-book episode in which aliens landed in mid-20th-century America and reported back to their [...]

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[This is Part 2 of a two-part series about the song "Cry Me a River," made popular, originally, in a recording released in 1955. Part 1, about the song's history, appeared a few days ago. As I indicated there, if you hope to learn anything from this about the Justin Timberlake song of the same [...]

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[Another in a series of occasional posts about popular American songs with long histories. And if you are seeking information on the Justin Timberlake song by the same name, believe me, you are 100% in the wrong place.] On paper, it doesn’t appear to be a “big” song. Nearly always, the arrangement features a single [...]

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I had occasion this morning to hear a song I haven’t heard in a couple years, and this made me think of the guy who introduced me to it. Like many friends these days, he’s not one I’ve ever actually met: I know him only through his online handle, “FLJerseyBoy” (three guesses what first got [...]

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[This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with long histories. Part 1 -- which focused on the song's composition and lyrics -- appeared on Wednesday.] How many times and by which performers has “Begin the Beguine” been covered? It is to laugh. The most comprehensive list I’ve seen was on the page [...]

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[Cole Porter at the piano, sometime in the 1930s. For me, it's easy to see in him, from this photo, the song "Begin the Beguine" -- but not the beguine itself.] [This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with appeal across the generations. This post will be broken into two parts; Part [...]

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[This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with long histories. Part 1 -- on the song itself as finally recorded by numerous artists -- appeared on Tuesday.] Hoagy Carmichael published “I Get Along Without You Very Well” in 1938. (The copyright date was November 18.) But the song’s history stretched back over [...]

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