Blow the Wind Southerly

The lilting folk song Blaw the Wind Southerly (now Blow the Wind Southerly) is an old bagpipe tune from the Northumbrian region in the south of Scotland. The tune was recorded by Laura Alexandrine Smith in The Music of the Waters (1888).

Many versions of the lyrics have developed over the decades. Most tell the story of a woman desperately hoping for the safe return of her love from across the sea. The lyric below was noted by Smith in The Music of the Waters (1888).

Blaw the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blaw the wind southerly, south or south-west;
My lad's at the bar, at the bar, at the bar,
My lad's at the bar whom I love best.

Smith notes that sometimes the last two lines of this song are varied as follows:

Blaw the lad ti' the bar, ti' the bar, ti' the bar,
Blaw the lad ti' the bar that I love best.


The lyric below was noted by William Cole, et al., in Folk Songs of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (1969).

Blow the wind Southerly, Southerly, Southerly,
Blow the wind South o'er the bonnie blue sea.
Blow the wind Southerly, Southerly, Southerly
Blow bonnie breeze, my true lover to me.

They told me last night there were ships in the offing
And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea.
But my eye could not see it wherever might be it,
The bark that is bearing my lover to me.

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Happy Anniversary, Compact Discs!

On March 2, 1983, compact discs and players were first available in the US. Shown, a Sony Compact Disc, scanned by Arun Kulshreshtha. This image is made available by the author under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

On March 2, 1983, compact discs and players were released for the first time in the United States and other markets. Prior to this date, CDs and players were only available in Japan.

For those of you who don't recall, or weren't around, the compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony and released in 1982. The format was originally developed to store and play only sound recordings but was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM). Several other formats were further derived from these, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Disc (VCD), Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD), Photo CD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced Music CD. The first commercially available Audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan.

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and can hold up to about 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or about 700 MiB of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers.

At the time of its introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard drive, which would typically hold 10 MB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity level. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.

Beginning in the early 2000s CDs were increasingly replaced by other forms of digital storage and distribution, with the result that by 2010 the number of audio CDs being sold in the U.S. had dropped about 50% from their peak; however, they remained one of the primary distribution methods for the music industry. Then, in 2014, revenues from digital music services matched those from physical format sales for the first time.

To learn more about compact discs, check out these sites.

This History of the CD - Philips

History of the Compact Disc - Low End Mac

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Tommy Tune (born 1939)

Tommy Tune in 1977.

February 28 marks the birthday of Thomas James "Tommy" Tune. Born February 28, 1939, Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won ten Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.

In 1965, Tune made his Broadway debut as a performer in the musical Baker Street. His first Broadway directing and choreography credits were for the original production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1978. His direction of Nine The Musical in 1982, which also won the Tony for Best Musical garnered him his first Tony for direction of a musical. He has gone on to direct and/or choreograph eight Broadway musicals. He directed a new musical titled Turn of the Century, which premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago on September 19, 2008 and closed on November 2, 2008.

Off-Broadway, Tune has directed The Club and Cloud Nine. Tune toured the United States in the Sherman Brothers musical Busker Alley in 1994–1995, and in the stage adaptation of the film Dr. Dolittle in 2006.

Tune is the only person to win Tony Awards in the same categories (Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical) in consecutive years (1990 and 1991), and the first to win in four categories. He has won ten Tony Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

On television, Tune was a recurring guest star and assistant choreographer from 1969–70 on The Dean Martin Show and its summer replacement series, Dean Martin Presents The Golddiggers. He also briefly appeared on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in 1988.

Tune appeared in a 1975 TV special titled Welcome to the "World" along with Lucie Arnaz and Lyle Waggoner to promote the opening of Space Mountain at Walt Disney World.

Tune's film credits include Ambrose in Hello, Dolly! (1969), and The Boy Friend with Twiggy (1971). Tune released his first record album, Slow Dancin', in 1997 on the RCA label, featuring a collection of his favorite romantic ballads.

In 1999, he made his Las Vegas debut as the star of EFX at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.

Tune staged an elaborate musical entitled Paparazzi for the Holland America Line cruise ship the Oosterdam in 2003. He works often with The Manhattan Rhythm Kings, for example touring in a Big Band revue entitled Song and Dance Man and White Tie and Tails (2002).

Tune performed in his musical revue, Steps in Time: A Broadway Biography in Song and Dance, in Boston in April 2008 and continuing in various venues from Bethesda, Maryland in January 2009 to California in February 2009.

The Tommy Tune Awards, presented annually by Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) honor excellence in high school musical theatre in Houston. The current home of the Tommy Tune Awards is the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Houston, Texas.

In 2013, he appeared as Argyle Austero in the revived fourth season of Arrested Development on Netflix.

In 2015, he made a return to the New York stage as a featured performer in City Center's staged concert Encores!. He was featured in two numbers in Lady, Be Good!; his first act number was the Gershwin standard "Fascinatin' Rhythm."

To learn more about Tune's life and career, click on these links.

IMDB

Internet Broadway Database

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Nanette Fabray (1920–2018)

Nanette Fabray, October 27, 1920 – February 22, 2018. Fabray as she appeared in 1963. No specific date or copyright information available.

Nanette Fabray, American actress, singer and dancer, passed away February 22, 2018 at her home in Palos Verdes, California. She was 97.

Born Ruby Bernadette Nanette Fabares, she began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life. In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comedic partner on Caesar's Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards, as well as co-starring with Fred Astaire in the film musical The Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she appeared as Katherine Romano on the TV series One Day at a Time.

Fabray overcame a significant hearing impairment and was a long-time advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Her honors for representing the handicapped included the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.

Fabray's first husband, David Tebet, was a vice president of NBC. Her second husband was screenwriter Ranald MacDougall, who's writing credits include Mildred Pierce and Cleopatra and who, in the early 1970s, served as president of the Writers Guild of America. The couple was married from 1957 until his death in 1973. They had one child: Jamie MacDougall. Fabray was the aunt of singer/actress Shelley Fabares. Her niece's 1984 wedding to actor Mike Farrell was at her home. Fabray was associated with Ronald Reagan's campaign for the governorship of California in 1966.

Nanette Fabray has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was awarded the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for her long efforts on behalf of the hearing impaired.

To learn more about Fabray's life and career, click on these links.

IMDB

Internet Broadway Database

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Near the Cross

Fanny J. Crosby (1820-1915) was the author of over 8,500 gospel songs. Though blind at 6 weeks of age, Crosby began writing at age 6. She later became a teacher at the New York School for the Blind, where she was a student. A friend of several presidents, Crosby became one of the most important advocates for the cause of the blind in the United States.

Crosby’s writing career flowered at the New York School for the Blind, where she received acclaim as a poet. Then, on November 20, 1850 at Thirtieth Street Methodist Church, Crosby went forward to the altar and accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. The congregation was singing Isaac Watts’ hymn about the cross.

At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light
And the burden of my heart rolled away
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day
Shortly thereafter, Crosby began writing hymns, and many of her songs focused on the theme of the cross, such as “At the Cross, There’s Room”, “Blessed Cross”, “Room at the Cross”, “Save Me at the Cross”, and this hymn, “Near the Cross”. The hymn was composed after Cincinnati businessman William H. Doane gave Crosby a melody he had written—a practice that was not uncommon in their relationship. Listening to the melody, Crosby felt it said, “Jesus keep me near the cross,” and she promptly wrote the words. The hymn first appeared in the collection Bright Jewels for the Sunday School (1869), compiled by William B. Bradbury, Robert Lowry, Doane, W.F. Sherwin and Chester G. Allen.

Near the Cross
by Fanny J. Crosby, 1869

Jesus, keep me near the cross;
there a precious fountain,
free to all, a healing stream,
flows from Calvary's mountain. 

Refrain:

In the cross, in the cross,
be my glory ever,
till my raptured soul shall find
rest beyond the river.

Near the cross, a trembling soul,
love and mercy found me;
there the bright and morning star
sheds its beams around me.

Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
bring its scenes before me;
help me walk from day to day
with its shadow o'er me.

Near the cross I'll watch and wait,
hoping, trusting ever,
till I reach the golden strand
just beyond the river.

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Jerusalem

"And did those feet in ancient time" is a short poem by William Blake from the preface to his epic Milton a Poem. The short poem was first printed ca. 1808. Today, it is best known as the anthem "Jerusalem", with music written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916.

The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant, traveled to what is now England and visited Glastonbury during the unknown years of Jesus. The legend is linked to an idea in the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing the Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a new Jerusalem. The Christian Church in general, and the English Church in particular, has long used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.

In the most common interpretation of the poem, Blake implies that a visit by Jesus would briefly create heaven in England, in contrast to the "dark Satanic Mills" of the Industrial Revolution. Blake's poem asks four questions rather than asserting the historical truth of Christ's visit. Thus the poem merely implies that there may, or may not, have been a divine visit, when there was briefly heaven in England.

And did those feet in ancient time

William Blake, ca. 1808

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green & pleasant Land

Near the close of the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, “Jerusalem” is sung at the funeral for Harold Abrahams. The line from the poem "Bring me my Chariot of fire!" draws on the story of 2 Kings 2:11, where the Old Testament prophet Elijah is taken directly to heaven: "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." The phrase has become a byword for divine energy, and inspired the title of the 1981 film. The phrase "chariots of fire" refers to 2 Kings 6:16–18.

“Jerusalem” sung in the film Chariots of Fire (1981)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vxlX5wyEQs

Although the music was composed as a unison song, "Jerusalem" has been adopted by many churches and is frequently sung as an office or recessional hymn in English cathedrals, churches and chapels on St George’s Day. It is also sung in some churches on Jerusalem Sunday, a day set aside to celebrate the holy city, in Anglican churches throughout the world and even in some Episcopal churches in the United States.

However, some clergy in the Church of England have said that the song is not technically a hymn as it is not a prayer to God (which they claim hymns always are, though many counter-examples may be found in any hymnal). Consequently, it is not sung in some churches in England.

Despite this, it was sung as a hymn during the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in Westminster Abbey.

“Jerusalem” sung at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Prince William and Catherine Middleton), Westminster Abbey, April 29, 2011. BBC Television.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rib95MMfwY

Parry's tune is so well liked that the song is sung not only in many schools, especially Public schools in Great Britain, and is also the hymn for several private schools in Australia, New Zealand, New England and Canada. "Jerusalem" was chosen as the opening hymn for the London Olympics 2012, although “God Save the Queen” was the anthem sung during the raising of the flag in salute to the Queen. Some attempts have also been made to increase its use elsewhere with other words. The Church of Scotland debated altering the words of the hymn to read “Albion” instead of England to make it more locally relevant. A widely published alternative hymn text for the tune is Carl P. Daw’s O day of peace that dimly shines of 1982.

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Jimmy Van Heusen (1913–1990)

January 26 is the birthday of James "Jimmy" Van Heusen (1913–1990), American composer. Van Heusen wrote songs for films, television and theater, and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song.

Born Edward Chester Babcock in Syracuse, New York, he began writing music while at high school. He renamed himself at age 16, after the famous shirt makers, Phillips-Van Heusen, to use as his off-air name during local shows. His close friends called him "Chet."

Studying at Cazenovia Seminary and Syracuse University, Van Heusen became friends with Jerry Arlen, the younger brother of Harold Arlen. With the elder Arlen's help, Van Heusen wrote songs for the Cotton Club revue, including "Harlem Hospitality."

Van Heusen then became a staff pianist for some of the Tin Pan Alley publishers, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in Me" (1938) with lyrics by Jimmy Dorsey.

Collaborating with lyricist Eddie DeLange, on songs such as "Heaven Can Wait", "So Help Me", and "Darn That Dream", Van Heusen work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in 1940 alone. It was in 1940 that Van Heusen teamed up with the lyricist Johnny Burke.

Burke and Van Heusen moved to Hollywood writing for stage musicals and films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star" (1944). Their songs were also featured in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).

Van Heusen was also a pilot of some accomplishment; he worked, using his birth name, as a part-time test pilot for Lockheed Corporation in World War II.

Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist Sammy Cahn. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won for "All the Way" (1957) from The Joker Is Wild, "High Hopes" (1959) from A Hole in the Head, and "Call Me Irresponsible" (1963) from Papa's Delicate Condition. Their songs were also featured in Ocean's Eleven (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), which featured the Oscar-nominated "My Kind of Town."

Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "Love and Marriage" (1955), "To Love and Be Loved", "Come Fly with Me", "Only the Lonely", and "Come Dance with Me" with many of their compositions being the title songs for Frank Sinatra's albums of the late 1950s.

Van Heusen wrote the music for five Broadway musicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939); Nellie Bly (1946), Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper (1965), and Walking Happy (1966). While Van Heusen did not achieve nearly the success on Broadway that he did in Hollywood, at least three songs from Van Heusen musicals can legitimately be considered standards - "Darn That Dream" from Swingin' the Dream; "Here's that Rainy Day" from Carnival in Flanders and "I Only Miss Her When I Think of Her" from Skyscraper. Van Heusen became an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.

He composed over 800 plus songs of which 50 songs became standards. Van Heusen songs are featured in over two hundred and twenty films.

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