Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Nina Simone’

Wild Is the Wind

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, tagged , , , , , on March 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I don’t have much to say today. Oh, I have plenty to say but I am going to spare you having to hear it. I just want to get to work this morning seeing as it’s March 1 which translates to me as march forward as I prep for my annual shows. It’s total immersion time.

So, let’s keep it short today. I want to show a coupling of a song and a painting which I think works well together. The painting is above and is titled Blaze. It’s one of those pieces that have somehow found their way back to me and this one always confounds me. It felt so right and easy– graceful–off the hand. Even now, I always stop and look at this piece for the longest times, wondering why it is here. I guess it just hasn’t met its rightful partner yet.

The song that I matched up with Blaze is Wild Is the Wind from Nina Simone. It was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis for a movie of same title in the 1950’s. It’s a little overproduced for my taste but the song is undeniably strong. Nina Simone took it and made it into a spare and special song. It was used as the title track for her 1966 album which is considered one of the greatest albums of the 1960’s, remarkable in a decade filled with legendary albums. David Bowie also is noted for performing this song, which was done as a tribute to Simone.

Give a listen and have a good day.
*************

Read Full Post »

Tomorrow Is My Turn

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , , on September 25, 2016| 1 Comment »

Sunny Point from the shore of Keuka LakeThe last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic as you might guess from the lack of posts here.  There was the Gallery Talk last weekend at the Principle Gallery down in Virginia then a few days spent setting up and leading the painting workshop at Sunny Point on Keuka Lake with a bunch of personal things jammed in between.  I was plain pooped out yesterday and just couldn’t get myself to write anything for the blog.

Inside at Sunny Point. Keuka LakeBut the workshop at Sunny Point this week went really well and was, I think, fun for the folks there. Me, too.

But I do know that they made incredible strides in a very short period of time and had created several pieces that were pretty advanced in my opinion.  I think I made some strides, as well, as far as my teaching method goes which made everything goes a little faster. This, along with the beautiful setting on the shore of Keuka Lake, with the lap of the waves keeping rhythm just outside the workspace, made this year a bit  more enjoyable than last year’s affair which was very satisfying in itself.

I was very unsure going in if I would be willing to do this again but this experience with this setting and the warmth of the folks there makes me think I might want to try once more.  We’ll see.

For this Sunday’s musical selection I thought I’d go with something slightly weighty and cerebral.  I think this version of Tomorrow is My Turn  fills the bill.  It’s from the super talented Rhiannon Giddens and is a remake of Nina Simone‘s English language version of a Charles Aznavour  song, written originally, of course, in French.  None of that really matters when you’re listening.  So set everything aside and give a listen.  Then have a good Sunday…

Read Full Post »

To Love Somebody

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , on March 6, 2016| 1 Comment »

nina-simoneThere’s been a huge resurgence as of late in interest in the music and life of the great Nina Simone, who died in 2003 at the age of 70.  You hear her music on all sorts of movie and television soundtracks and commercials.  There has been a couple of documentaries made of her life ( this includes the highly acclaimed What Happened, Miss Simone? on Netflix) and there are a number of big screen biopics in the works.

The most current and yet to be released project is titled Nina and features Zoe Saldana as Simone.  There’s been a lot of controversy over this film as Saldana altered her looks by wearing a prosthetic nose and darkening her skin with makeup.  Plus the Simone estate disavows this film and disputes much of the story as it is to be presented in the film.

Even in death, Nina Simone can stir up a hornet’s nest.

She was a unique talent– classically trained as a pianist, supremely gifted as a performer/vocalist and militantly proud of her black heritage during the height of the civil rights era.  But she had many other demons and her life was never simple or easy, filled with super highs, crushing lows and many conflicts along the way.  It’s no wonder that we find her story perfect fodder for the movies.

Myself, I just love her ability to take a song from another artist and just transform it into something that feels altogether new, feeling like it is her’s alone.  She was just a rare talent.

So, for this Sunday Morning Music let’s listen to her take on the Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody.  Enjoy and have  a great Sunday…

 

Read Full Post »

Casting Spells

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 22, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Spellbound

“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind/Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,/Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,/Above, beneath, betwixt, between”

—Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

***********************

This new painting has a feeling of magic for me, the feeling of an incantation being cast out into the dark of night.  There’s a sense of wishing in the way the Red Tree postures beneath the moon, asking whatever force that moves the moon and brings the light to cast a spell and bring about some sort of change.

Perhaps a spell is nothing more than wishes spoken aloud and defining that gnawing desire inside ourselves.  After all, once we know what we truly want we begin to shape the world subtly, and often unwittingly, so that these wishes might be fulfilled.  And sometimes, if the belief behind them is strong,  these spells become reality.  But many other times the spell is lost in the ether of time and space and they  never come to be.

Such is the nature of spells.

I am calling this piece Casting Spells.

For this Sunday Morning Music, I thought this song  would be the right accompaniment to this painting.  It’s a version of I Put a Spell On You, originally written and performed by the inimitable Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.  This version is from  another true original, the late great  Nina Simone.  Great version.

Have a great Sunday and watch out for spells–they’re floating all over the place out there.

Read Full Post »

I Loves You Porgy

Posted in Current Events, Music, Opinion, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Cabbage Row- Catfish Row Charleston SCFirst things first, a happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there, including my own living down in Florida.  I was going to say more about him today and some recent cognition troubles he’s been experiencing but I think I will keep it simple and just send out my wishes for a Happy Father’s Day.

Being Sunday, it’s time for some Sunday Morning Music.  I was going to play something with a father-y theme but this week’s tragic event down in Charleston has been on my mind.

In the late 1980’s, my parents lived  for a couple years on one of the sea islands outside of Charleston so we were able to visit a few times.  It was hard not to embrace the place with all its charms, its people and history always on display.  I’ve had a soft spot for that area ever since and when the Principle Gallery opened a new location there two years ago I was thrilled in that it might give me an excuse to visit that place once more.

So when a hate-filled , weak-minded coward given  power through a gun takes the lives of nine innocent people in that city, I am filled a multitude of emotions.  Sadness for the families and friends of those victims, for the city itself and for this nation that seems to accept this type of tragedy more and more as the norm.  Anger at the killer and at ridiculous hatred he possesses.  Anger at the societal mindset that incubates or tolerates this hatred, especially in a state where the Confederate flag brazenly flies about the state capital.  Anger at those people who believe that this is somehow “their”country and that it is their duty to somehow take it back.  Anger at politicians who give lip service but little else in the aftermath, only looking to put the event in a perspective that suits their own agenda.

How many more times will we tolerate this?  Many, many more I am sure because there is no easy answer here, no magic pill that wipes away racism, especially in a society where the constant thinly-veiled racism shown  in the contempt and disrespect for our president is accepted as the normal.  We can’t continue the way we have int he past, simply accepting this as the everyday event it is quickly becoming.  We must not tolerate intolerance. We must choose to change.

But Charleston will survive, will get past this time as it has so many other dark days.  This morning I am playing a song that has a foot in those earlier days of Charleston.  It’s a song from George and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess based on the Dubose Heyward novel, Porgy, set in the the real Cabbage Row area of Charleston.  This became Catfish Row in the story so that it could be relocated to the seafront.  The photo above with the Catfish Row sign is the actual site of Cabbage Row where families of freed slaves lived in the late 1800’s and ealry 1900’s, selling cabbage from the windowsills.

The song is I Loves You, Porgy from the late and oh so great Nina Simone.  She was one of the greatest and most distinct interpreters of song ever.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard her sing anything that didn’t become hers once it was sang.  This song is a tour de force among many version of it from a wide range of singers. Enjoy and have a great Sunday and a great Father’s Day.

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: