Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 163 Shares129 Views

    in Music

    Clarence Henry, New Orleans R&B Star Known as the Frogman, Dies at 87

    A local hero in his hometown, he was best known for his hit “Ain’t Got No Home,” which showcased the vocal versatility that earned him his nickname.Clarence Henry, the New Orleans rhythm-and-blues mainstay who was known as Frogman — and best known for boasting in his durable 1956 hit, “Ain’t Got No Home,” that “I sing like a girl/ And I sing like a frog” — died on Sunday. He was 87.The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, where Mr. Henry had been scheduled to perform this month, announced his death. The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reported that he died in New Orleans of complications following back surgery.“Ain’t Got No Home,” which reached No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, became Mr. Henry’s signature hit and definitively captured his humor and his vocal high jinks. Written by Mr. Henry and released when he was a teenager, the song brought him his nickname and went on to become a perennial favorite on movie soundtracks, heard in “Forrest Gump,” “Diner,” “Casino” and other films. The Band opened “Moondog Matinee,” its 1973 album of rock ’n’ roll oldies, with “Ain’t Got No Home.”The song was also used regularly in the 1990s by the right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, who played it while mocking homeless people. Mr. Henry was grateful for the royalties.Mr. Henry in a publicity photo from 1960, shortly before his recording of “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do” became his biggest hit. James J. Kriegsmann, via Gilles Petard/Redferns — Getty ImagesHis next hit — and his biggest one — arrived in 1961, when “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do,” a song written by Bobby Charles and arranged by Allen Toussaint, reached No. 4. Later that year Mr. Henry had a No. 12 hit with his version of the standard “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” In 1964, the Beatles chose him as one of their opening acts for 18 shows on their American tour.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

  • 150 Shares169 Views

    in Music

    The Magnetic Fields Wrote ‘69 Love Songs.’ Here’s 11 of the Best.

    A primer on the indie-rock band’s triple album, now celebrating its 25th anniversary.Marcelo KrasilcicDear listeners,I hope everyone who was in the path of Monday’s eclipse enjoyed the view! I confess I didn’t acquire eclipse glasses in time and couldn’t see anything too spectacular from where I was in Brooklyn, but at least Friday’s Amplifier playlist gave me a soundtrack for imagining some awe-inspiring grandeur.Today’s playlist is something a little different, and more earthbound: a tribute to the Magnetic Fields, the long-running indie band that is currently on a tour commemorating the 25th anniversary of “69 Love Songs,” its landmark 1999 triple album, which I happen to adore very much.“69 Love Songs” is exactly what it says on the tin: nearly three consecutive hours of amorous-themed tunes, all written by the group’s mastermind Stephin Merritt. The album is a staggering showcase of his range as a songwriter, covering just about every genre imaginable and thoroughly chronicling the good (“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side”), the bad (“No One Will Ever Love You”) and the ugly (“The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be”) sides of love.The tour is currently in the middle of an eight-night run at Manhattan’s Town Hall, where the band’s original members are playing the album in its entirety for the first time in over two decades. (Because a 69-song set is daunting, they are splitting the album up over two consecutive nights.)For today’s playlist, I attempted something that I found very, very difficult: choosing my 10 favorite tracks off “69 Love Songs.” In classic Amplifier fashion, though, I found the task impossible and allowed myself one extra song. I can already hear some of you shouting at your screens — “What, no ‘I Don’t Want to Get Over You’? And no ‘Reno Dakota’?!” — but these are just my personal picks. One of the most enjoyable parts of dissecting this dense album is comparing notes with other fans; everyone seems to have their own quirky and somewhat inexplicable preferences. (I almost put “Kiss Me Like You Mean It” on this list, for example.)May this playlist serve as a less intimidating introduction to the album, if you’re unfamiliar with it, or a tantalizing refresher if you are. No playlist can duplicate the musical roller-coaster ride that is listening to “69 Love Songs” in full — an experience I would recommend to any music fan. By design, and to paraphrase one of its greatest tracks, some of it is just transcendental, some of it is delightfully dumb.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

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Music

    ‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’ Review: A Met Milestone Returns

    After making history as the Metropolitan Opera’s first work by a Black composer, Terence Blanchard’s “Fire” is back — with its showstopping step dance.The Metropolitan Opera premiere of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” on Sept. 27, 2021, was a momentous event. Doubly so: “Fire” was the company’s first staged opera after an 18-month pandemic closure, and it was, after 138 years, its first work by a Black composer.The opera, with a score by Terence Blanchard and a libretto by Kasi Lemmons, took on some of the grandeur and excitement of that moment. The raucous fraternity step dance that opens the third act brought down the house.That step dance still stopped the show on Monday evening, when “Fire” returned to the Met. Two and a half years later, the work is a test case. The company has sharply increased its diet of contemporary operas — some of which, including “Fire,” sold very well as new productions. But how will these operas perform when they’re brought back, without the same promotional push?On Monday, at least, the audience seemed robust and, as it was during the initial run, notably diverse. And “Fire” remains a heartfelt piece, emanating a touching if vague sadness. But without the exhilarating sense of occasion it had at its Met premiere, the opera’s shortcomings were clearer.Based on the New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow’s memoir of his turbulent upbringing in Louisiana, “Fire” is a progression of episodes — some upbeat, some forlorn. It takes the form of a search: The lonely Charles, his psyche wounded as a child by his cousin’s sexual abuse and his mother’s real but distracted love, looks for belonging and healing.He tries church, fraternity membership, his siblings, a woman, another woman, but none offer what he’s seeking; all want him to be different than he is. Only after a hasty, therapy-speak conclusion in the final minutes, presided over by an ethereal choir and the voice of his younger self, can he finally accept himself and sing, “Now my life begins.”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

  • 125 Shares109 Views

    in Movies

    Downtown Los Angeles Places Another Big Bet on the Arts

    The pandemic was tough on city centers and cultural institutions. What does that mean for Los Angeles, whose downtown depends on the arts?For decades the effort to revitalize downtown Los Angeles has been tied to arts projects, from the construction of the midcentury modern Music Center in 1964 to the addition of Frank Gehry’s soaring stainless steel Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003.But the pandemic was tough on downtowns and cultural institutions around the country, and Los Angeles has been no exception.Its downtown office vacancy rates climbed above 25 percent. Storefronts are empty. Homelessness and crime remain concerns. Many arts organizations have yet to recover their prepandemic audiences. And there have been vivid displays of the area’s thwarted ambitions: Graffiti artists covered three abandoned skyscrapers just before the Grammy Awards were held across the street at the Crypto.com Arena, and some lights on the acclaimed new Sixth Street Viaduct were doused after thieves stole the copper wire.So it was a major vote of confidence in the area’s continuing promise when the Broad, the popular contemporary art museum that opened across the street from Disney Hall in 2015, announced last month that it was about to begin a $100 million expansion.A rendering of the expansion announced by the Broad, a contemporary art museum, in March, which it said would cost $100 million.Diller Scofidio + Renfro, via The BroadAnd it was very much a continuation of the vision of its founder, Eli Broad, the businessman and philanthropist who played a key role in the effort to create a center of gravity in a famously spread-out city by transforming Grand Avenue into a cultural hub. Broad, who died in 2021, helped to establish the Museum of Contemporary Art and get Disney Hall built before opening the Broad to house his own art collection.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

  • 138 Shares169 Views

    in Music

    Scientists at The Pasteur Institute in Paris Are Forming Musical Groups

    The Pasteur Institute in Paris, known for its world-altering scientific research, has been making advancements in another field: the musical arts.The Pasteur Institute, since opening in the 15th Arrondissement in Paris in the late 1880s, has been recognized for world-altering scientific discoveries. The institute, named for Louis Pasteur, the pioneering French scientist who founded it, has contributed to the production of vaccines for tetanus and the flu and was at the forefront of discovering the virus that causes AIDS.In recent years, the Pasteur Institute has made advancements in another field — the musical arts — as some of its scientists have formed bands and other acts involving colleagues as well as students who have studied there. That cohort has honed its musical passion and ability at an on-site studio they call the music lab.On a Friday evening in March, three acts developed in the lab headlined an event held at the institute’s cafeteria. They included Polaris and also Billie and the What?!, both blues-rock bands, and an a cappella group, Les Papillons, or “the butterflies” in English.Some performers in the a cappella group Les Papillons, or “the butterflies” in English, accessorized their outfits with wings. Cedrine Scheidig for The New York TimesGermano Cecere, a director at the institute, center rear on the drums, performed with his band Billie and the What?!Cedrine Scheidig for The New York TimesMoody purple light bathed the room, which was decorated with balloons and streamers in shades of pink, gold and white. It was filled with more than a hundred people, as well as with an array of equipment, including mics, speakers, guitars and an elaborate drum kit.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

  • 113 Shares99 Views

    in Music

    Vladimir Jurowski Believes That No Artist Can Be Apolitical

    At Munich’s prestigious opera house, the Russian-born Vladimir Jurowski has broadened the repertoire while rooting his work in political awareness.One by one, the singers came out to bow. They had just finished a performance of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s little-known “The Passenger,” at the Bayerische Staatsoper, or Bavarian State Opera. Each received not just respectful, but also enthusiastic applause. The loudest cheers, though, were reserved for the conductor: Vladimir Jurowski.Now in his third season as the opera house’s music director, Jurowski, 52, is attracting the kind of adoration from the Munich public that was routine under Kirill Petrenko, who left in 2021 to lead the Berlin Philharmonic. But Jurowski is not merely winning over audiences; he has maintained the Bavarian State Opera’s reputation as one of the finest — if not the finest — companies in Europe while pushing its repertoire in new directions and rooting his artistry in political awareness.“We classical musicians tend to keep ourselves way from politics,” Jurowski said over lunch in March. “We always say that the music should be apolitical. Music can be, and art can be, but people who are making art should not be apolitical. At a certain point it becomes not about politics, but about ethics.”The new productions that Jurowski has led in Munich include Shostakovich’s satirical “The Nose,” directed by Kirill Serebrennikov while he was still under house arrest in Russia; Penderecki’s “The Devils of Loudun,” an allegorical tragedy about fanaticism that read in the moment as a warning against cancel culture; and Prokofiev’s “War and Peace,” staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov as an indictment of Russian nationalism after the invasion of Ukraine.When Jurowski started at the Bavarian State Opera, there were grumblings among audience members that his changes to the repertoire would come at the cost of the classics. But he has led new productions of standards like “Der Rosenkavalier,” “Così Fan Tutte” and “Die Fledermaus,” and will embark on Wagner’s “Ring” beginning this fall. And the audience hasn’t resisted: Attendance, as usual, continues to hover around 95 percent, which is extraordinary for opera.“You can try to convince people of your vision one by one in private conversations, but I think you can only persuade by the quality of the delivered product,” Jurowski said. “That’s what counts.”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

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Music

    Beyoncé, ‘Cowboy Carter’ and Filling in History’s Gaps

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLast month, Beyoncé released “Cowboy Carter,” an album that tackles the whole of American music, using country, roots and Americana as jumping off points for explorations of race and power and the implicit politics that come with them. It is currently the No. 1 album in the country, with the biggest debut week of the year so far.On the heels of “Renaissance,” her 2022 album that served as a primer and commentary on the history of queer Black dance music, “Cowboy Carter” takes a parallel approach, unearthing and underscoring the Black history and influence behind genres that have, especially since the mid-20th century, been whitewashed.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about what Beyoncé is attempting to achieve on “Cowboy Carter,” the way the album has been received and where she is likely to turn next.Guests:Marcus K. Dowling, country music reporter at The TennesseanJulianne Escobedo Shepherd, who writes about music for Pitchfork and othersConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

  • 138 Shares119 Views

    in Music

    ‘Is She Sure?’ How the Breeders Joined Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour.

    The ’90s alt-rock icons hit the Madison Square Garden stage for the first time Friday night, after the 21-year-old pop star invited them to join her on the road.Olivia Rodrigo remembers her life in two parts: before she heard the Breeders’ “Cannonball,” and after, she told the crowd at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, when her Guts World Tour arrived in New York.And that is how the ’90s alt-rock idols came to play the New York arena for the first time last week, 31 years after that song from their platinum 1993 album, “Last Splash,” charted on Billboard’s Hot 100.Rodrigo’s camp initially approached the Breeders in September about opening some dates on the tour supporting her second album, “Guts.” “My first reaction was, Wow, that seems kind of odd,” the band’s bassist, Josephine Wiggs, said in an interview. “But after I’d thought about it for a while, I thought, ‘That’s actually really genius.’”Kim Deal, the singer-guitarist who leads the band with her twin sister, Kelley, said she was surprised when they got the invite. “I’d heard ‘Drivers License,’ and I liked that a lot,” she said, referring to Rodrigo’s breakout 2021 smash.Kelley wondered if it might be a mistake. “I thought, ‘Is she sure? Do they really mean us?’”The Breeders onstage at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. The band’s performance the night before was their first-ever on the arena’s stage together.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesBut Rodrigo made her enthusiasm clear when the shows were confirmed, reaching out personally to share her excitement. “She texted each one of us individually,” Kelley recalled.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