Aurelia Butler

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    A Note From Irving Berlin, the ‘Nation’s Songwriter’

    The lyricist and composer wrote thousands of compositions — and one stern letter to The New York Times.Few songwriters and composers were as prolific as Irving Berlin, whose vast musical catalog includes well-known songs such as “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “Cheek to Cheek” and “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).” By some accounts, he wrote well over 1,200 songs during his career, including the scores for 18 films and 19 Broadway shows.His 1942 song “White Christmas,” most famously performed by Bing Crosby, remains a holiday classic, and his patriotic hit “God Bless America,” released in 1938, is considered an unofficial national anthem.Berlin’s legacy survives not only in tunes, but in organizations he created that influenced the musical world. In 1914, he helped found the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, a music licensing agency that today, per its website, secures the royalties and legal rights for over one million songwriters, composers and music publishers. In 1919, he broke away from Ted Snyder and Henry Waterson, with whom he had built the successful music publishing company Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., and established his own. He was also behind the Music Box Theater in Manhattan.In the Morgue, The New York Times’s physical clippings library, there’s a thick file on Berlin. One of the items inside is a letter, dated April 14, 1924, that Berlin sent to The Times. In the letter he made clear that he had no existing ties to Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., which had recently filed a lawsuit against ASCAP. The lawsuit, in part, “sought to compel the defendants to account for all of the licenses issued permitting the broadcasting of the songs and musical compositions belonging to the plaintiff,” as The Times had reported days earlier.Berlin explained that he had “severed” his connection to the firm years earlier. He implored The Times to make this distinction in forthcoming articles: “I would consider it a special favor if you make it perfectly clear that I, Irving Berlin, have no connection whatsoever with the firm of Waterson, Berlin & Snyder.” (The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1929.)Berlin lived to be 101; when he died in 1989, The Times called him the “nation’s songwriter” in his obituary. More

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    Billy Edd Wheeler, Songwriter Who Celebrated Rural Life, Dies at 91

    His plain-spoken songs were recorded by Elvis Presley, Kenny Rogers and many others. The duo of Johnny Cash and June Carter made his “Jackson” a huge country hit.Billy Edd Wheeler, an Appalachian folk singer who wrote vividly about rural life and culture in songs like “Jackson,” a barn-burning duet that was a hit in 1967 for June Carter and Johnny Cash as well as for Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, died on Monday at his home in Swannanoa, N.C., east of Asheville. He was 91.His death was announced on social media by his daughter, Lucy Wheeler.Plain-spoken and colloquial, Mr. Wheeler’s songs have been recorded by some 200 artists, among them Neil Young, Hank Snow, Elvis Presley, and Florence & the Machine. “Jackson” — a series of spirited exchanges between a quarrelsome husband and wife — opens with one of the most evocative couplets in popular music: “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout/We’ve been talkin’ about Jackson, ever since the fire went out.”From there the husband boasts about the carousing he plans to do in Jackson, as his wife scoffs at his hollow braggadocio. “Go on down to Jackson,” she goads him on, emboldened by the song’s neo-rockabilly backbeat. “Go ahead and wreck your health/Go play your hand, you big-talkin’ man, make a big fool of yourself.”Written with the producer and lyricist Jerry Leiber, with whom Mr. Wheeler had apprenticed as a songwriter at the Brill Building in New York, “Jackson” was a Top 10 country hit for Ms. Carter and Mr. Cash and a Top 20 pop hit for Ms. Sinatra and Mr. Hazlewood. The Carter-Cash version won a Grammy Award in 1968 for best country-and-western performance by a duo, trio or group.The 1967 album “Carryin’ On With Johnny Cash & June Carter” included Mr. Wheeler’s song “Jackson,” which would reach the country Top 10 as a single and win a Grammy.ColumbiaMr. Wheeler’s original pass at the song, though, was anything but auspicious. In fact, when Mr. Leiber first heard it, he advised Mr. Wheeler to jettison most of what he had written and to use the line “We got married in a fever” in the song’s opening and closing choruses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Bad Bunny Commemorates a Hurricane, and 11 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Jane’s Addiction, Bon Iver, Yola and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes), and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Bad Bunny, ‘Una Velita’On the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which left lasting damage to Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny has released the mournful, resentful, adamant “Una Velita” (“Little Candle”). “It’s going to happen again,” he warns in Spanish. “Here comes the storm, who’s going to save us?” Faraway guitars, deep Afro-Caribbean drumming and a choir back him as he recalls the insufficient government response to Maria: “Five thousand were left to die, and we’ll never forget that.” Before the next storm, he calls for God’s protection and for self-reliance: “It’s up to the people to save the people.”Jane’s Addiction, ‘True Love’The reunited original lineup of Jane’s Addiction has just canceled its tour and announced a band hiatus after an onstage fistfight midway through a Boston concert. But that hasn’t precluded the release of “True Love,” the second single from the reconvened band. It’s an unironic, even romantic tribute to “basking in the glory of true love,” free of anyone else’s judgments. The minor-key, relatively subdued arrangement — reverb-laden guitar, mallets on drums — only underlines the song’s sense of commitment, even if the band has fractured again.Bon Iver, ‘Speyside’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    San Francisco Symphony Chorus Goes on Strike

    The work stoppage has forced a cancellation of the Verdi Requiem performances.Amid the San Francisco Symphony’s financial troubles, the orchestra’s chorus members on Thursday went on strike, forcing a cancellation of the upcoming performances of Verdi’s Requiem.More than 150 musicians and patrons joined the chorus on picket lines, which started Thursday evening in front of Davies Symphony Hall, just before the Verdi concert was to begin.“Management has repeatedly failed to show how targeting the Symphony’s internationally acclaimed Choristers will solve their alleged financial issues,” said Ned Hanlon, the president of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents the chorus union members. “We urge management to immediately return to the bargaining table and work toward a real solution that honors the work of these dedicated artists and gets everyone back to creating beautiful music.”Matthew Spivey, the orchestra’s chief executive officer, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He recently told The New York Times that the orchestra has been “living beyond our means,” having struggled for years with deficits, a shrinking donor base and the decline of the old subscription model of season tickets.Esa-Pekka Salonen, the symphony’s music director, declined through a spokesman to comment.Despite the orchestra’s endowment fund, valued at about $315 million — one of the largest of any ensemble in the United States — the union has said that management pushed “for unsustainable and disproportionate cuts to the Chorus.” More

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    How Sophie’s Posthumous (and Final) Album Was Completed

    “Sophie,” a new LP by the visionary hyperpop producer, traces an arc from introspection to pop pleasures to thoughts of eternity. It will be her final release.In the early hours of Jan. 30, 2021, the visionary hyperpop producer Sophie was living in an apartment in Athens. To get a better view of the full moon, she climbed up a balcony, but slipped and fell. She was 34, and her death brought an outpouring of appreciation for the ways her sonic vocabulary — pointed, wriggly, blippy synthesizer tones and ultra-succinct hooks — had moved so quickly from pop’s experimental fringe to the mainstream.In Athens — and before that in Los Angeles and London — Sophie had been working on the successor to her 2018 album, “Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides” and its 2019 remix LP. The new album was so close to completion that Sophie had chosen the full track list. Three years later, Benny Long, her brother and studio manager, has finished it, striving to honor Sophie’s artistic intentions. It will simply be titled “Sophie.”“There was, at the start, a lot of self-doubt. Can I? Is this going to be possible without her?,” Long said in a video interview from Los Angeles. “But I thought, really, it comes down to, would she want this album to come out or would she not? And she definitely would.”Sophie left behind many more tracks in progress, some of which are likely to emerge as singles or EPs, or appear on other performers’ albums. But as a guardian of Sophie’s catalog, Long has decided that “this is the last Sophie album,” he said. “This is an album that we had worked on for years. We discussed everything about it — the themes, the track list. So to do another album and put it out as a solo album, it would just feel all wrong.”“Sophie,” out Sept. 27, is the artist and producer’s most collaborative album. It includes vocals from the songwriters and singers Kim Petras, Bibi Bourelly, Hannah Diamond, Cecile Believe, Jozzy, Big Sister and Liz, as well as the duo BC Kingdom (who have recorded with Solange Knowles). There’s even a spoken-word appearance by the D.J. and producer Nina Kraviz.Completing the album became a family project for Benny and his sister Emily Long. She studied music law to work with Sophie, and she passed the bar exam two weeks before her sibling’s death. Once Benny resolved to finish Sophie’s album, Emily joined him in making decisions. “Every single day we talk about Sophie and what she loved and the things that would make her happy,” Emily said via a video call from Los Angeles. “We all know why we’re here. We’re all here for her.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How Optimus Prime and Megatron Learned to Transform in ‘Transformers One’

    The director Josh Cooley narrates an action scene from the film.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.Transforming can be tough, especially if you’ve never done it before and you’re being shot at while tumbling down a hill.That’s where the characters find themselves in “Transformers One,” the animated origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron. Up to this point in the movie, the film’s leads have not been in the possession of the cogs needed to transform. Having just acquired them, the characters must quickly figure out how to use their new powers while under attack. It initially doesn’t go well.“I had all the toys growing up,” the director Josh Cooley said in an interview. “Most of the time, they were just sitting around on the ground half-transformed because they were actually pretty hard to do.” Cooley said he thought it would be enjoyable to watch the characters struggle the same way he struggled with his toys.Regarding that tumble, Cooley said that he wanted to use the hill to make transforming even more difficult. He said that one of his references was a cheese rolling competition that takes place each year in England.Read the “Transformers One” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    11 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

    Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.Critic’s PickA double dose of dark comedy.Sebastian Stan in “A Different Man.”A24‘A Different Man’Edward (Sebastian Stan), a man with a condition that warps his facial features, discovers his problems are internal after he gets cosmetic surgery and meets another man, Oswald (Adam Pearson), who has the same condition in this dark comedy written and directed by Aaron Schimberg.From our review:Like many literary and cinematic fables before it — think of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” or “The Elephant Man” — “A Different Man” is really a morality play, of a kind. It’s just that the moral isn’t all that straightforward. It’s about a societal obsession with particular standards of beauty. The fact that conventionally attractive people, or people with certain features and skin colors, tend to encounter more success in life simply by dint of genetic luck is explicit throughout. But that fact is so obvious, and stated so blatantly outright, that it feels like a joke.In theaters. Read the full review.Like two cool cats who just swallowed the canary.Brad Pitt and George Clooney enter their Redford-Newman era in “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts.Apple TV‘Wolfs’George Clooney and Brad Pitt play underworld fixers — the people you call to make criminal evidence disappear — who begrudgingly team up for a job.From our review:It isn’t remotely tense or mysterious, and its modest thrills derive wholly from the spectacle of two beautifully aged, primped, pampered and expensive film stars going through the motions with winks and a degree of brittle charm. The movie is a trifle, and it knows it. Mostly, though, “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts, is an excuse for its two leads to riff on their own personas, which can be faintly amusing and certainly watchable but also insufferably smug. It’s insufferable a lot.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickGirls gone gory.Demi Moore in “The Substance.”Mubi‘The Substance’In this body horror stunner directed by Coralie Fargeat, Elisabeth (Demi Moore) is an aging starlet who tries a new drug that promises to create a younger, better version of herself (Sue, played by Margaret Qualley). It performs as advertised, but with disastrous and disgusting consequences.From our review:Be warned: This is a very gory and often bombastic movie. The logic is also not airtight, especially when it comes to whether, and how, Sue and Elisabeth share a consciousness. … It’s all metaphor, though, not in the least bit meant for a literal analysis. That’s an awkward thing to mix into a movie that turns every subtext into text, which means its constant hammering of its points starts to feel patronizing, as if we might not get it. But it’s also quite funny, and the worse things become for Elisabeth, the harder it is not to giggle with glee. By the end, things have become monstrous and mad.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickSisters, under the skin.Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne in “His Three Daughters,” directed by Azazel Jacobs.NetflixWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More