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Post by alyn on Mar 8, 2023 3:46:50 GMT -5
I heard that quote that Linda wanted to take the American Songbook 'out of the elevator' in the lead up to her first album with Nelson Riddle. Can anyone tell me if this was a direct quote and maybe the article it came from? Long shot, I know... Reason being : I am using this scenario in a cartoon, part of a rambling improvisional series I am working on, currently involving a scene inside an elevator and it amuses me to try and incorporate Linda in it, literally taking music out of the elevator and I wanted to show an article with the quote, which I love :-)
Thank you!
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Post by rick on Mar 8, 2023 4:18:45 GMT -5
alyn, if I heard or read Linda say she wanted to take the music of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, etc. “out of the elevator” once, I heard/read Linda use that expression 20 times. Linda has a tendency to repeat phrases / anecdotes she likes (I am sure we all do).
She has often told the anecdote about wanting to explore other genres of music and her record label saying to her: “Why don’t you just throw your career away with both hands?” And then Linda says she said, “Well, I’m good at that.”
Alyn, in my opinion, I don’t know if you’re ever going to pinpoint the first time she ever used the “out of the elevator” quote because IMHO she used it a lot.
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Post by Holly on Mar 8, 2023 4:44:56 GMT -5
here is one of many
‘Mexican Music Gave Me a Whole Voice’: Linda Ronstadt Looks Back on the Album of Her Life
Hilary Hughes
Sept. 20, 2022
“American songbooks were running up and down in an elevator for years,” she says. “People thought the songs were corny. They were just so beautifully crafted. They’re incredibly sophisticated. They can work on the old, simple kind of pop level and on the deepest intellectual level. A lot of the rock ’n’ roll stuff I sang was for kids—30, you’re aged out of it—and I wanted to sing grown-up music. We wanted to sing music the women would sing. They’d been taking care of a house, and they just had time to rest and a little bit of time to get together. Their children were making demands, and they didn’t have to have their hands in the scrub board. And get together and share their feelings. I felt very strong about that.”
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Post by alyn on Mar 8, 2023 5:15:29 GMT -5
alyn, if I heard or read Linda say she wanted to take the music of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, etc. “out of the elevator” once, I heard/read Linda use that expression 20 times. Linda has a tendency to repeat phrases / anecdotes she likes (I am sure we all do). She has often told the anecdote about wanting to explore other genres of music and her record label saying to her: “Why don’t you just throw your career away with both hands?” And then Linda says she said, “Well, I’m good at that.” Alyn, in my opinion, I don’t know if you’re ever going to pinpoint the first time she ever used the “out of the elevator” quote because IMHO she used it a lot.
Okay...actually that's cool... I was planning to re-draw an article as if from a music paper or newspaper with the quote but if she repeated it many times then I can just create the image as a fictitious 'one off' using the quote, that gives me artistic license :-)
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Post by eddiejinnj on Mar 8, 2023 6:47:24 GMT -5
Hey bloke: What would be funny, would be if you had people riding in an elevator with Standards Muzak (maybe have riders commenting on the elevator music) and then it opens up to a club scene where Linda is doing the same song. The elevators door opens up to this penthouse club with her lush sounds. Then somebody says: "Boy, she really took this music out of the elevator". eddiejinfl
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Post by alyn on Mar 8, 2023 6:57:42 GMT -5
Hey bloke: What would be funny, would be if you had people riding in an elevator with Standards Muzak (maybe have riders commenting on the elevator music) and then it opens up to a club scene where Linda is doing the same song. The elevators door opens up to this penthouse club with her lush sounds. Then somebody says: "Boy, she really took this music out of the elevator". eddiejinfl
oh man, it's a great idea but I know I'm not that good a cartoonist to carry that off :-) :-)
I will post the result when I get it done, it will be more simplistic, but the hardest thing will be to get Linda right, I've only tried once before with an attempt at the cover of Hasten Down The Wind in my own style, gosh that was hard, it had to really catch her identity :-)
it's not a bad challenge to set myself...I do all my cartoons on an iPad these days, about a year ago I threw away all that traditional drawing on paper stuff and caught up with the modern age...the possibilities really are endless with an app called Procreate, but ultimately I try and keep it simple, strip cartoons I love are Calvin & Hobbes and Get Fuzzy, and of course Peanuts, so I aspire to say more with less :-)
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Post by RobGNYC on Mar 8, 2023 10:36:28 GMT -5
I've never understood the elevator comments. No one who knows anything about music and songwriting would think that "the songs were corny." It's called the "Great American Songbook" for a reason. If Linda was pining for those songs, she made the right decision to sing them, but they've never needed to be "rescued."
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Post by Holly on Mar 8, 2023 15:47:20 GMT -5
and now Rock and Roll is being played in elevators and any remaining malls around the country.
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Post by rick on Mar 8, 2023 16:05:18 GMT -5
I've never understood the elevator comments. No one who knows anything about music and songwriting would think that "the songs were corny." It's called the "Great American Songbook" for a reason. If Linda was pining for those songs, she made the right decision to sing them, but they've never needed to be "rescued." Rob, I understood Linda's point. In the film, "What's Up, Doc?" at the hotel where much of the action takes place, many songs from the 1930s (the era of screwball comedies ["Remember Them?"]) are featured in Muzak versions in the hotel and in the elevator. My memory of the time before Linda came out with "What's New?" (and, IMHO, we have talked this topic to death and beyond) in the 1970s, you basically had Harry Nilsson's standards work and then prior to "What's New?" Carly Simon did "Torch." Those were major pop artists of the day. While I always loved standards thanks to being exposed to them by my parents, the likes of Mel Torme', Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Margaret Whiting, etc., although they still had club dates in Las Vegas, etc., they were not popular. Again, I was still buying music by the likes of these people and seeing them live in concert, but from 1975-1979 when I was in college, a lot of my college friends would roll their eyes at these people (my girlfriend at the time referred to Peggy Lee as "Pig"). Even Streisand had moved on from standards and with "What About Today?" and then, in a bigger way, "Stoney End" was recording songs by Paul Simon, Carole King, Randy Newman, etc. So by the time that Linda hired Nelson Riddle and created and released "What's New?" it was unusual for someone of Linda's fame/stature, etc., to take these on and to perform them with Nelson Riddle and not treat them as kitsch. I believe both on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson" and during her Boston Pops performance with Rosemary Clooney, Linda talked about how rock 'n' roll ("being another wonderful type of music") had sort of "swept away" "another wonderful kind of music" (standards). In writing this post, I can remember my Dad, in particular, seeing The Animals or The Rolling Stones or whomever on TV, and cursing a blue streak at the TV. When I would play "Hasten Down the Wind" on our family's stereo system my Dad would shake his head at "That'll Be the Day" and its repetitive refrain and he'd say "my bucket's got a hole in it, my bucket's got a hole in it, my bucket's got a hole in it." My point is that for a lot of America the music by the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter was "squaresville, man." |
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Post by erik on Mar 8, 2023 19:33:09 GMT -5
While I certainly agree that the generation that came of age in the early-to-mid 1950's was (unnecessarily, in my opinion) dismissive of the Great American Songbook generation, one has to remember that they had found their own vehicle and method of musical expression:: the mix of urban and rural Black and White musical styles that became Rock and Roll. People like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, rightly or wrongly, spoke to that generation in a more direct and earthy way than, say, Sinatra or Bing Crosby. And in all good honesty, it wasn't anything close to being squeaky clean--which I guess was precisely the point.
Did both the kids of the rock and roll generation and their parents overreact towards one another over musical tastes? In my opinion, the answer is Yes. There was always vitality in what Sinatra and his generation did, just as there would be with Elvis, and then the Beatles. But perhaps it took the shake-up that Linda herself provided with What's New in 1983 to jar both sides of that cultural divide back into reality.
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Post by alyn on Mar 9, 2023 4:37:55 GMT -5
No matter how highly the songs are thought of now or were thought of when Linda recorded the first album with Nelson and brought them to life, the fact was that in the 1960s and 1970s, these songs were reduced to watered down weak instrumentals for elevator and mall use - over here in the UK Geoff Love and his Orchestra were the worst high profile offenders, but the movement towards a library of 'soft' music for use leant heavily on the Great American Songbook. When Sinatra became cabaret in the late 60s and 70s (and don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of his music from the late 50s to late 60s and have a massive collection, he was far and away, the greatest) I believe this added fuel to the elevator music fire, beat then rock music railed against it and it was hoist by it's own petard, by going cabaret I believe. Middle Of The Road music mostly became dreary and that other expression 'Wallpaper Music' found it's place. No matter how great the songs remained behind those dreary, floppy instrumentals, it was like the songs and songwriters were stabbed in the back.
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Post by eddiejinnj on Mar 9, 2023 7:00:03 GMT -5
Whatever the history, etc what it all boils down to was that it was not in fashion when I was growing up at the NJ shore. I can only imagine how I would have been treated if I told people I had a Judy Garland record. Respect for such music was limited to those that lived the songbook. Popular music, of course, has had many styles over the years with new generations liking and/or rejecting what they no longer find popular. eddiejinfl
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Post by RobGNYC on Mar 9, 2023 19:49:31 GMT -5
I dwelled happily in a different Universe. In high school and college (1974-1982), in addition to rock, Motown, new wave, disco, and Linda, I listened to and bought albums by Ella, Judy, Sarah, Barbra (pre- Stoney End). The worst comment from a fellow student was "No one will ever steal your record collection." Ella did a concert at my college (Muhlenberg, Allentown PA) in 1982 and it was sold out (and she gave the stand-in drummer the gig of his life). For me, the Great American Songbook has always been relevant. I've no doubt that Linda's comments are sincere. I just don't recognize these "people" that she quotes regarding "corny," especially since she's spoken several times about how she and J.D. would listen obsessively to Sinatra's Only the Lonely album. I guess we've never ridden the same elevators. mcall.newspapers.com/image/282507994/?fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjI4MjUwNzk5NCwiaWF0IjoxNjc4NDA3ODM3LCJleHAiOjE2Nzg0OTQyMzd9.QH8JMD_WPl77X3XoQUk4m35hXgVWVDcq__y_6xqr9Ko&clipping_id=81302295 |
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Post by Dianna on Mar 10, 2023 0:04:38 GMT -5
Whatever the history, etc what it all boils down to was that it was not in fashion when I was growing up at the NJ shore. I can only imagine how I would have been treated if I told people I had a Judy Garland record. Respect for such music was limited to those that lived the songbook. Popular music, of course, has had many styles over the years with new generations liking and/or rejecting what they no longer find popular. eddiejinfl Still better than The Bay City Rollers or Tony Orlando and Dawn.. Imagine walking around Wherehouse Records or Tower Records looking for the 45 to S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night! or Tie A Yellow Ribbon.. ha ha. |
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Post by Partridge on Mar 10, 2023 1:22:21 GMT -5
"No one will ever steal your record collection." That brought back memories. I was burgled. The TV and stereo system were stolen, but they left the records. They even politely set aside the record that was still on the turntable. And to digress, when I was at uni, someone took my copy of Carole King's Tapestry. No one confessed to it. One day I walked into a friend's room (he left the door open). He had fallen asleep and I saw my copy of Tapestry on his record stack. I was most irritated so I took his entire stack and put them in the trunk of my car. |
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Post by Holly on Mar 10, 2023 13:29:51 GMT -5
"No one will ever steal your record collection." That brought back memories. I was burgled. The TV and stereo system were stolen, but they left the records. They even politely set aside the record that was still on the turntable. And to digress, when I was at uni, someone took my copy of Carole King's Tapestry. No one confessed to it. One day I walked into a friend's room (he left the door open). He had fallen asleep and I saw my copy of Tapestry on his record stack. I was most irritated so I took his entire stack and put them in the trunk of my car. You should have put his hand in warm water since he was asleep. Payback. |
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Post by alyn on Mar 11, 2023 3:10:35 GMT -5
That brought back memories. I was burgled. The TV and stereo system were stolen, but they left the records. They even politely set aside the record that was still on the turntable. And to digress, when I was at uni, someone took my copy of Carole King's Tapestry. No one confessed to it. One day I walked into a friend's room (he left the door open). He had fallen asleep and I saw my copy of Tapestry on his record stack. I was most irritated so I took his entire stack and put them in the trunk of my car. You should have put his hand in warm water since he was asleep. Payback. Holly - that's a shocker.... Evil and Dethpicable... I love it :-) |
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