Robeson on Old Man River -- the dirt.

"Nancy Sinatra has called [Sinatra's version] her favorite recording of her late father's voice."
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1279965.html

Google says that Bing Crosby did a version in 1928.... wonder if he used the original "Niggers all work on the Mississippi"...?

everyone on this thread should seek out the 1931 (?) version of "show boat" in which paul robeson sings this very song, beautifully.

(also: "let me go 'way from the white man boss")

actually young sinatra sounds quite like mid-period crosby, based on the track after "ol man river" on thos particular comp (what he DOESN'T sound is young)

(that's totally a paraphrase, and possibly i got it wrong: but anyway it always stuck in my mind)

Some sample cantor song titles:

I've Got the "Yes! We Have No Banana" Blues
I Love Me (I'm Wild About Myself)
I'll Have Vanilla
Those Panama Mammas
Little Curly Hair in a High Chair
If I Give Up The Saxophone, Will You Come Back To Me?

one cantor tune i like a lot is "They Go Wild, Simply Wild Over Me" which always seemed to me to anticipate Yellowman's "Mad over Me".

ts: "show boat" vs. "porgy & bess" ???

i have a record of paul robeson singing "the internationale" and some russian folk songs.

but he pulled out and did weird al's "living with a hernia" with another friend instead & i did johnny b. goode on my own.

later in high school jm and i talked about but never actually did an ultra-angsty rendition of NIN's "hurt" for that lipsync contest.

i also sorta wanted to do bad bad leroy brown back in 4th grade but never did that, tho me & some friends did "love potion #9" for "50s day" (!) in 7th. (was that you jm? i don't remember. i remember sean tho).

on a robeson kick tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjO9rIwn5M

Classic, or the most talented person of the 20th century?

http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/long-overdue-paul-robeson-revival-talented-person-20th-century

Probably so, yeah.

“His life and legacy was the film I wanted to make the second after Hunger,” McQueen said, referring to his debut movie, about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. “But I didn’t have the power, I didn’t have the juice.”

McQueen was speaking on stage in New York at the Hidden Heroes awards, organised by the Andrew Goodman Foundation, named in honour of one of three young civil rights activists murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964.

The director told the audience that he first discovered Robeson at the age of 14. A neighbour called Mr Milton used to give McQueen books and articles he thought might be of interest, and one day put a cutting about Robeson through his parents’ letterbox.

“It was about this black guy who was in Wales and was singing with these miners,” remembered McQueen. “I was about 14 years old, and not knowing who Paul Robeson was, this black American in Wales, it seemed strange. So then, of course, I just found out that this man was an incredible human being.”

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/18/steve-mcqueen-to-make-film-about-paul-robeson

cool

i tried reading that "la review of books" article but the font was so horrendous (particularly on the letter b) that i had to give up! i wish i wasn't such an oversensitive crank. :(

no sign of the feature film yet, but hoping to see this McQueen-Robeson thing tonight

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/OpenPlanSteveMcQueen

wish a director i liked more was doing a robeson biopic but oh well

actually there's no reason to have a biopic at all, but you can extend that to most every subject

Simon Callow reviews a pair of new Robeson books.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/02/08/emperor-paul-robeson/

Paul Robeson pic.twitter.com/gxFue7jJdf

— Noname (@noname) January 14, 2020

"you did it another way here in Australia, you had to build your accumulated wealth too ... you just came and took it!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0bezsMVU7c