Take my whole life too . . .

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, according to William Congreve. But sometimes it's all that keeps me from running screaming over the cliffs like an enraged lemming.

Anyone who knows me or follows this blog knows that musically for me it's all about the melody. And one of the loveliest melodies I know is this song, about which I wrote before: I Can't Help Falling In love With You when I was contributing to Kevin Hayden's American Street. Here's the post:

Certain melodies sound timeless: classical, pop, doesn’t matter. How many of you felt, when you heard “With or Without You” by U2, that you had heard it before . . . it somehow reminded you of something.
What it reminded you of is a classic melody, reworked enough to be different, yet standing on its own as a unique, wonderful song.
Another such melody is “Can’t Help Falling In Love“, first recorded by some guy named Elvis:

“Can’t Help Falling in Love,” by George Weiss, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, is a pop song based on “Plaisir d’amour” by Jean Paul Egide Martini. It was rewritten for the 1961 film Blue Hawaii, starring Elvis Presley.

I won’t bother posting any videos of Elvis singing it. Like all of his repertoire, toward the end he did it too fast and jivey. But several other artists covered the song, including some unlikely ones.
Pearl Jam recorded the song for a fan club CD, and played it live often. Here’s a live recording of them respectfully covering “Can’t Help Falling in Love”:

Here’s the original version, not a real video, but still…:

And for those who want the most beautiful recording of the precursor, “Plasir d’amour”, here’s the great Greek singer Nana Mouskouri singing her timeless version of the song from her 1976 “Passport” album. Melody is the most important part of music to me. Oh, and this song is from the afore-mentioned Martini’s opera “Annette et Lubin“, written in 1789:

It swells my heart that people keep finding this wonderful song, and it humbles me that I find older versions that do it justice.

In the first category, here's Ingrid Michaelson:



In the latter category, here's the late Klaus Nomi:



More about that version in a minute.

And to show that younger people still appreciate the beauty of great music, here's the best version I've heard in a long time, by the French group Revolver:



Notice the music at the beginning of the Klaus Nomi performance? It's probably the melody that was the precursor of both the aforementioned songs. One of the finest melodies of all time, its' Beethoven's Pathetique. This music grabs my heart every time I hear it:

Wise men say only fools rush in

Perfect songs:

'Cause I can play this here guitar, Pt. 28

I know I've written about this before, but have patience with me as I make a new point. There were two occasions in pop/rock music, pretty close together in '69-'70, where Everything Changed:

The first Led Zeppelin album came out in January 1969.

The first Black Sabbath album was released in February 1970.

Upon hearing both albums, every musician I knew realized that the bar had been raised, and music was entering new territory. And while the bands were really quite different, they do share many influences as well as mythologies: both are often mentioned as the first "Heavy Metal" band.

While both are indeed heavy, I think Sabbath is a better candidate for the title, as Zep, under Jimmy Page's direction, was a more experimental, blues-driven group, where Page could use Robert Plant's unique vocals as part of an orchestration along with guitar tones that were different and pretty exciting.

But Sabbath had the hands-down edge in Heavy, with Tony Iommi's use of what came to be known as power chords, and simplistic, insistent, and compelling "riffs", or repeated musical motifs.

So did Iommi invent the use of "power chords"? For those unfamiliar with the term, a power chord is a note grouping using just root and fifth notes, with no third. Thus, a C power chord would use C & G notes, with no E. This means that there is no 'major' or 'minor' distinction, but rather a universality of a solid chord. The 'prettiness' of the major, and the 'darkness' of the minor are non-existant, and all that remains are the solid, resonant foundation of the chord.

And back to the question, did Iommi invent power chords? No. Several players and bands were exploring these chord formations, including a certain Mr. Hendrix. But who actually used them first?

The first real usage of the power chord was much earlier, in my opinion, and it was by the unlikely but very talented Scotty Moore, guitarist for Elvis Presley, in the recording of Hound Dog. The song, originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton, is what is called a "12 bar blues" format. A chord chart would look like this:

I---I---I---I---IV---IV---I---I---V---V---I---I---

with each Roman Numeral representing the chords of the progression relative to the root key. If the song is in the key of E, then I = E, IV = A, and V = B.

All this is to set up the following premise: Listen the the original recording of Hound Dog, and listen to what Scotty Moore is playing on the I chords: Root-fifth notes, with no thirds. And thus was the power chord born.

Oh, and listen to the solo. Pretty serious rock chops for the day. For both of those, Scotty Moore is the latest Under-Appreciated Guitarist in the series.

Would it be a sin . . .

Truly late night music club...

Certain melodies sound timeless: classical, pop, doesn't matter. How many of you felt, when you heard "With or Without You" by U2, that you had heard it before . . .it somehow reminded you of something.

What it reminded you of is a classic melody, reworked enough to be different, yet standing on its own as a unique, wonderful song.

Another such melody is "Can't Help Falling In Love", first recorded by some guy named Elvis:

"Can't Help Falling in Love," by George Weiss, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, is a pop song based on "Plaisir d'amour" by Jean Paul Egide Martini. It was rewritten for the 1961 film Blue Hawaii, starring Elvis Presley.

I won't bother posting any videos of Elvis singing it. Like all of his repertoire, toward the end he did it too fast and jivey. But several other artists covered the song, including some unlikely ones.

Pearl Jam recorded the song for a fan club CD, and played it live often. Here's a live recording of them respectfully covering "Can't Help Falling in Love":



Here's the original version, not a real video, but still...:



And for those who want the most beautiful recording of the precursor, "Plasir d'amour", here's the great Greek singer Nana Mouskouri lip-synching to her timeless version of the song from her 1976 "Passport" album. Melody is the most important part of music to me. Oh, and this song is from the afore-mentioned Martini's opera "Annette et Lubin", written in 1789:



And just for fun, here's my friend Liona Boyd playing a version of "Plasir..." on the "Super Dave Osborne" show . . . why, I'm not sure: