tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9980139.post2725829145472285428..comments2023-06-05T05:14:02.139-04:00Comments on = VITAPHONE VARIETIES =: "The Battle Cry of Syncopation"Jeff Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13397346655785197799noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9980139.post-88739264151289531952009-01-23T19:39:00.000-05:002009-01-23T19:39:00.000-05:00Greetings, K.C.--Much appreciate your taking the t...Greetings, K.C.--<BR/><BR/>Much appreciate your taking the time to comment upon this post, which is certainly one of perhaps a half dozen or so individual posts that I'm particularly pleased and satisfied with --- which doesn't happen often! <BR/><BR/>There's a special sense of accomplishment in resurrecting a personality or film that has been lost to time, and invariably it has been this sort of post which I'm able to read and wonder who wrote it --- it seems too good to have been of my hand!<BR/><BR/>I'm always spectacularly surprised to note which posts gain the most attention and popularity --- and which don't, and have decided that no clear pattern emerges. Therefore, I just trust my good judgement -- or lack thereof, and write whatever catches my interest at the time of writing and hope that the readers find it agreeable too.<BR/><BR/>Fond though I am of Miss Tucker, I don't think she or her work can be pulled from 1929 and be resurrected today in any form other than the presentation of her recordings or (should it ever be found) film. Many have tried, and while spirited and well intentioned, the effect is unsettling or ghoulish or impossibly campy or just plain bad. My own opinion, that.<BR/><BR/>There is solace in the fact that we can visit Tucker (and her peers) in the time in which they existed and --- if we can mentally omit all that came after and remember all that came before --- "see" and hear them as if they were before us.<BR/><BR/>A long winded reply, but I can't say I mind seeing the comments section of this post finally see some action!<BR/><BR/>Many thanks, K.C. ---<BR/><BR/>JeffJeff Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13397346655785197799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9980139.post-13079020234621300432009-01-23T18:08:00.000-05:002009-01-23T18:08:00.000-05:00Dear Jeff:As I scrolled back through your delightf...Dear Jeff:<BR/><BR/>As I scrolled back through your delightful pages, I was shocked to see that this wonderful chapter on Sophie Tucker has elicited not a single comment in the year-and-a-half since it was posted. So here's the first one. Maybe it will prime the pump.<BR/><BR/>Sophie Tucker is one of America's greatest cultural treasures. As a singer, she deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Ada Jones, Nora Bayes, Bessie Smith, Fanny Brice and other outstanding contemporaries, and also in company with such younger giants as Billy Holiday, Judy Garland, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. Indeed, a case could be made that she contributed more to the shaping of American popular music than any of these women, or anyone else you might think of.<BR/><BR/>I would dearly love to see a stage revival of her work. Bette Midler could of done this in her prime, and a few young singers with the requisite low-register pipes and sass-and-brass attitude could do it now---e.g., Fiona Apple and K. T. Tunstall. <BR/><BR/>It's quite moving to see her gravestone with the Hebrew inscription. Her lifeline parallels that of my late father-in-law, a Vaudeville dancer and Irish tenor named Walter Burke (1887-1964), who I'm sure appeared on the same bill with Sophie from time to time. Follow this link to see him on the sheet music cover of Cliff Friend's "Where the Lazy Daisies Grow": <BR/><BR/>http://mainemusicbox.library.umaine.edu/musicbox/pages/full_record.asp?id=VP_007478&dispimg=0<BR/><BR/>I admire your work enormously. I hope you can keep it going for many years to come.<BR/><BR/>KC in ProvidenceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com