by Peter Cates Leonard Bernstein Bradley Cooper’s Maestro gave a somewhat superficial depiction of the marriage of Leonard and Felicia Bernstein while biographies of David Ewen, John Gruen and Joan Peyser filled in some facts and personal, at times biased observations, Gruen providing fascinating interviews as well. I am going to provide a list of […]
by Peter Cates Carlo Maria Giulini Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini was born May 9, 1914, and passed away June 14, 2005. He displayed talent by the age of five on the violin, but took up the viola as an adolescent, was gainfully employed in Italian radio orchestras, and had priceless opportunities to observe an […]
by Peter Cates Edna St. Vincent Millay Camden/Rockland native Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) has been written about in this column previously. However, I wish to commemorate her during this Memorial Day week for her switch from being an anti-war pacifist during World War I to supporting the U.S. government’s entry into World War II […]
by Peter Cates Smith Ballew Native Texan Smith Ballew (1902-1984) had a dance orchestra with which he recorded batches of 78s back during the 1930s. One was a 1935 ten inch shellac (Conqueror 8441) containing a very expressive performance of a Great American Songbook standard, Isle of Capri, in which he also sang as lead […]
by Peter Cates Hangman Hangman is a 2017 thriller dealing with a serial killer on the loose in the fictitious city of Monroe, Georgia. The psycho also dispatches each of his victims according to a children’s game called Hangman, hence the title. The movie is also a piece of junk in terms of all the […]
by Peter Cates Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt As I am writing this on May 5, I wish to pay tribute to conductor Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt who was born on this day 124 years ago and passed away on May 28, 1973, at the age of 73 . Some background: he recorded a number of 78s for the Telefunken […]
by Peter Cates Gerard Robichaud Novelist Gerard Robichaud (1908-2008) was born in Québec, moved with his parents to Lewiston as a child, returned to Québec at 18 to study for the priesthood and practice writing stories during his spare time, but then left the priesthood to return to Lewiston in 1928 and over the next […]
by Peter Cates Highlights Highlights (Columbia CT 52849) is a 1992 cassette of 24 selections from the massive 1991 four CD set, Just for the Record, of almost 40 years of Barbra Streisand’s singing with a few vocals from composers Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers, and Michel Legrand, and singers Judy Garland, Neil Diamond and Ray […]
by Peter Cates Gingersnaps A 1956 seven-inch 45 (Kapp K-226X) features the Gingersnaps, four women from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, who had been friends in high school. They perform two novelty bubblegum pop songs, Gingerbread; and Lenny! Lenny! This record was for me an intriguing historic curiosity because, having been born in 1951, the ‘50s have remained […]
by Peter Cates Sarah Orne Jewett The October 1904, Atlantic Monthly, out of Boston, Massachusetts, had an article, The Art of Miss Jewett, on South Berwick Maine’s own Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 – 1909) , via which Charles Miner Thompson (1864-1941) stated the following: “…I always think of her as of one who, hearing New […]