It's times like these when I wish I hadn't been a "C+" student in high school French class. Why? Because 95% of the websites that mention Line Renaud are in French, and the Google translator is...well, insufficient at best.

Line Renaud, born in Lille, France in 1928, rose to fame in the 1950s and 60s as a premiere pop starlett. Renaud (whose real name is Jacqueline Enté) a duet with Dean Martin "Relax." In 1959, she became a lead singer at the Casino de Paris. Between 1963 and 1965, Renaud regularly performed at Dunes, a major casino in Las Vegas.

I hate that I can't find any details on Line Renaud. Her music drips with soul and sexuality. It's hot (in that way that only the French can pull off), it's campy and it's bound to cause a smile. All but two tracks from Line Renaud au Casino de Paris dans Plaisirs below:

1. Trop Beau
2. When the Saints Go Marching In
3. Amour D'Ete
4. Casino de Paris
5. C'est L'amour
6. Conga Parade
7. Tilt
8. St. Louis Blues
9. Sexe

This particular album features the Golden Gate Quartet--one of the most successful gospel groups who sang in the jubilee quartet style. (thanks, Wikipedia).  The group was inducted in the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. (Did you know there was a vocal group hall of fame? Neither did I .) The two tracks the group contributed are among the strongest on the album ("When the Saints Go Marching In" and "St. Louis Blues").

Here's a clip of Line Renaud performing Bona Sera, taken about the same period as when she recording au Casino de Paris. 

Awesome, and here's a little nugget from the Quartet's website, that explains some of the mystery behind this collaboration.

To fill a two year engagement, signed with the Casino de Paris, the group sets up in France. On leave in Paris, Elvis Presley comes to watch them in Line Renaud's review "Pleasure". Afterwards, as Americans together in Paris, they made a jam session in Line Renaud's dressing-room, until 6 in the morning with Loulou Gastes guitar. Neither recording nor photograph are left to remember this musical evening, only the memories left in one's heart.

My friend Elizabeth is going through a break-up (of sorts). Reminds me of my brush with heartache earlier this year.

"Pencil Stick" - Clogs 

During the worst of it, a friend gave me a copy of the book When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chodron. I loved every page, every morsel of wisdom, and devoured it nightly before I would fall asleep (which was often quite difficult). Chodron offers so much solace to the lost and broken-hearted.

Cool loneliness allows us to look honesty and without aggression at our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be. We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment. 

"Homebird" - Foy Vance 

Tonight, I'm giving this book to Elizabeth (along with a mix CD and a bottle of red wine). Think of it as the Eggs for Becky break-up kit.

Is it just me, or are the twenties riddled with some pretty tough experiences? For many of us, it's the first time we experience the death of someone close, the break-up of our first significant relationship. I suppose it's not all doom and gloom, though. Afterall, there are happier first-time experiences, like traveling to distant lands, home-ownership, marriage and childbirth.

"Dressed Up for the Letdown" - Richard Swift 

I need to pack up and head to break-up headquarters.  Hope you enjoy the tunes. Check out the Clogs site for tour info. And here's another great Swift track:

After many, many warm days, autumn has finally settled into the city with a four-day long rain storm. Slow. Steady. And unavoidable. The rain always reaffirms my decision to rely on public transportation (or my own two feet). Driving in the district during even the mildest rain shower is an exercise in extreme patience.

"Story Problem"- Envy Corps 

This month has hurried by us. All busy. All toiling away happily. I've recently become obsessed with social media releases and Twitter.

"Samba de Benção" - Bebel Gilberto

Every morning I add five new Twitter "friends" and consume an ever-expanding number of RSS feeds. It's like, virtually overnight, I discovered several dozen blogs by marketing and web2.0 professionals, and now, when I miss a day of reading them, I panic.

"Lazerbear" - Carbon Dating Service

I'm still thinking about the Annie Leibovitz exhibit at the Corcoran. The photos of her partner, Susan Sontag, lying dead in a coffin. The photos of her smiling daughter, Sarah, her eyes crystal blue, staring at the camera as though she was staring at the next 100 years. Something about that 15-year retrospective hangs in my mind like the Sunday morning fog.

"Videotape" - Radiohead

I recently downloaded (and highly recommend) Radiohead's new album, In Rainbows. Several tracks on the album contain Amnesiac-style soundscapes, but there's also a surprising amount of guitar tinkling, reminiscent of OK Computer and The Bends.

If you haven't already heard, Radiohead is causing consternation in the music industry this monthy by offering their album for download at whatever price you think it's worth. Within the first week, the band scored 1.2 million purchases at an average of $8 per album (reports on figures vary). While this experiment would not garner the same returns for other groups, it does demonstrate the power of trust. Trusting your fans, the consumers. And unlike the traditional music industry supply chain, all of this money goes directly to the band (well, sort of).

Go buy the album.

Yorke told Time, "I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'Fuck you' to this decaying business model."

Impressionism. Are you a Debussy person or a Ravel person? One New York Times reviewer writes, "Debussy takes historical precedence, but Ravel gets under the skin." I don't know much about this 'historical precedence,' but I do know that the sensual wanderings of Debussy's compositions sometimes wear me out.

"D'un Cahier D'equisse" - Claude Debussy

Where Debussy navel gazes, Ravel expands outward. Bolero is an elegant score of periods and exclamation points. He enunciates and pivots between crescendos. When I was a child, listening to Bolero on vinyl, I always pictured a scene of endless rolling hills, of gliding over the green grass, sun shining.

"Bolero" - Maurice Ravel 

"Ma Mère l'Oye - Ballet : 5" - Maurice Ravel 

What's funny (but not surprising) is that Ravel never liked Bolero. He considered it a trivial "piece for orchestra without music." Maybe that's why I like it so much. It reads like a soundtrack to elegance. Understated. The power of this composition lies in what's not said.

Perhaps an important point of disclosure: I know very little about classical music. I'm a big fan of Rachmaninov, Bach and Vivaldi. I also enjoy some Moondog. (Is that even considered classical?) I couldn't idenitify a Haydn,  a Schubert, or a Chopin if my life depended on it. Keep that in mind as I ramble on about crescendos and elegant compositions.

Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano is a nice example of what a little jazz influence can do to musical impressionism, and is perhaps a better example of Ravel's style as a composer.

Two cocktail party songs from the 1950s, courtesy of my grandmother's LP collection. These tracks are off a Reader's Digest LP Box Set entitled, "Down Memory Lane."

1. "Patricia" - Alan Braden and His Orchestra

2. "Cherry Pink and Blossom White" - Alan Braden & Orchestra 

 Grab the martini shaker, invite over your classiest friends, and turn up the volume. One (rather obvious) note: Please try to enjoy the skips and scratches on these tracks. Think of them as a lil' extra 1950s authenticity.

 Cherry Pink and Patricia have been covered a million times, but the Alen Braden version seems to have gone unrecorded (on the web, at least).  The most popular vocal version of Cherry Pink was by Alan Dale, reaching #14 on the charts in 1955.

The song was featured in the movie Underwater! starring Jane Russell. (Scene to the left)

 

I'm about a year and two months too late for the Jim Noir craze, but I'm going to disregard indie mp3 etiquette and rave about him anyway. Some uses for Jim Noir's Tower of Love are listed below:

1. Hangover cure
2. Heartburn medicine
3. Temporary anxiety relief
4. Mood enhancer

Jim Noir combines the sunny disposition of melody king, Brian Wilson, with the melancholy of contemporary indie folk. (Does that make any sense?) It goes down sweet, but it's not the empty fluff of pop's past. Syrupy and delicious. Covered in a slow-moving fog that's become characteristic of Noir's sound. The track below is a perfect example of how this melodic "fog" adds weight to an otherwise light, shiny pop song:

"How to Be So Real" - Jim Noir

Bonus track: "Computer Song" - Jim Noir 

Buy this wonderful pop record.