Berlin Film Festival:

 Angelina Jolie's In the Land of Blood and Honey, review

Angelina Jolie's debut film as a director, In the Land of Blood and Honey which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, is a noble endeavour. 

 
: Dzana Pinjo, Zana Marjanovic in a still from Angelina Jolie's film In The Land Of Blood And Honey which opened at the Berlin Film Festival

11:10AM GMT

15 Feb 2012
 
The earnest “save the world” sentiments of many of the Hollywood A-list are easily mocked, either as the manifestation of some sort of God complex or as a cynical PR gesture.

Yet it would be churlish to doubt the good intentions of Angelina Jolie’s uncompromising if turgid Balkan war film In the Land of Blood and Honey – the Oscar winner’s feature debut as writer-director.

Eschewing the extensive roster of Hollywood stars that must fill her address book, Jolie has chosen to tell this story with a predominantly Balkan cast and crew, even filming a version in the local languages.

Combine this gloss-free production with the frank depiction of tough subject matter (frequent scenes of mass execution, rape and child murder) and you have to, at the very least, applaud her resolve to tell this story in such an uncommercial way.

The movie certainly isn’t in want of grit as we bear witness to shocking scenes built to remind us of ethnic cleansing that took place in Europe less than two decades ago.

As a device to show how the conflict split apart once peaceful communities, the story is structured around forbidden love between the soldier son of a Serb general, Danijel (Goran Kostic), and a beautiful Bosnian artist, Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), whose free-spirited peacetime fling develops into a mutually destructive wartime romance that asks moral questions of them both.

 
Never less than competent, it’s clearly the result of a sincere, long-harboured desire to raise awareness of these horrific, dehumanising events. It is frequently said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it and, with that in mind, it’s an almost entirely noble endeavour.

The film’s treatment of Serb characters – most of whom are portrayed as monsters beyond redemption – has already proved controversial and divisive for many in the Balkans as they look to move on from the past.

William Brown

Traditional Woodcraft song arr. by Stan Kelly Tune: Friggin' in the Riggin' (or similar)

© 1961 Heathside Music

With time and motion

Well, a nice young man was William Brown,
He worked for a wage in Liverpool town,
He worked from six till eight at night,
Turning a wheel from left to right.

Chorus:

Keep that wheel a-turning, keep that wheel a-turning
Keep that wheel a-turning and do a little more each day.

One day the boss to William came
And said, "Look here, young what's your name,
"We're not content with what you do,
"Work a little harder or out you go."

So William turned and made her run
Three times roung in the time of one,
He turned so hard he soon was made
The Lord High Turner of his trade.

William turned with the same sweet smile,
The goods he made grew such a pile;
They filled the room and the room next door
And overflowed to the basement floor.

The nation heard of the wondrous tale,
His picture appeared in the Sketch and the Mail;
The railways ran excursions down,
And all to look at William Brown.

Penultimate verse sung with pathos in a minor key

But sad the sequel is to tell;
He turned out more than the boss could sell;
The market slumped and the price went down,
Seven more days and they sacked young Brown.

Up to speed for last half-verse

The moral of the tale is plain to tell:
If you wanna lose yer job, just werk like HELL!

Final Chorus:

And keep that wheel a-turning, keep that wheel a-turning
Keep that wheel a-turning and do a little more each day.

Back to contents...

Rolling Stones- Brown Sugar- Lyrics

Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields,

Sold in a market down in New Orleans

Scarred old slaver know he's doin alright.

Hear him whip the women just around midnight.

Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good

(a-ha) brown sugar, just like a young girl should

--------------------------------------------------

A-huh.Drums beating, cold english blood runs hot,

Lady of the house wondrin where it's gonna stop.

House boy knows that he's doin alright.

You should a heard him just around midnight.

Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good

(a-ha) brown sugar, just like a black girl should

A-huh.I bet your mama was a tent show queen, and all her boy

Friends were sweet sixteen.

Im no schoolboy but I know what I like,

You should have heard me just around midnight.

Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good

(a-ha) brown sugar, just like a young girl should.I said yeah, I said yeah, I said yeah, I said

Oh just like a, just like a black girl should.I said yeah, I said yeah, I said yeah, I said

Oh just like, just like a black girl should.

RAISE YOUR BANNERS 2011

25-27 November, Bradford

Go to our RYB 2011 pages for programme information, or go straight  to our shop to buy tickets.

LATEST NEWS: EXTRA SEATS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PEGGY SEEGER & TAMS/COOPE CONCERTS.

These are strictly limited so we advise you to book now.

Performers include

And we've got big sounds from Amsterdam, Seize the Day and the Hall Brothers

Plus  a night of radical jazz, with Gilad Atzmon, Sarah Gillespie and Nizar Al Issa. Sadly, Omar Puente has had to withdraw from this concert, but it's stlll going to be a cracking night.

And on top of that we've got musical drama from Tina McKevitt and Matt Hegarty, a radical film programme, workshops, speakers, stalls and a whole lot more.

There are now 4 ways to buy tickets!

As well as online and postal booking, we've added a couple of new ways to get tickets.
New! Ring and reserve: phone 07530 243874. We will hold the tickets for five days. giving you time to send a cheque to our mailing address at 17-21 Chapel Street, Bradford BD1 5DT.
New! Advance tickets: you can now buy tickets for the jazz concert on Friday night and the Amsterdam concert on Saturday night at Jumbo Records in St Johns Centre, Leeds or visit www.jumborecords.co.uk.

Australian Aboriginal Art

Australian Aborigines have been employing the careful arrangement of soils and sands of different textures and colours to create pictures whose patterns and symbolism relate to the stories and myths of the Australian Aboriginal's ancestral tribal and cultural history - their Dreamtime.

The Dreamtime is the sacred world of the tribe's ancestral spirits whom the Aboriginals regard as the creators of all living things.

Today there are many indigenous Aboriginal artists who work with convential western materials such as acrylics, canvas or board to create beautiful visual effects, at the cutting edge of modern art, but who have synthesised old traditional imagery to conventional techniques.

Australian Aborigines have survived for so many thousands of years, often in quite challenging and inhospitable conditions, and their huge success was predominantly due to the indigenous Aboriginal's inate ability to adapt, and it is the expression of that adaptability which we can clearly see in todays fabulous Australian Aboriginal art.

The Western Desert painters are a group of Australian Aboriginal artists who have adapted their tribal art forms to the western world but only with regard to the western materials and techniques which they employ, the subject matter remains tightly focused on the stories and imagery which was passed down to them by their tribal ancesters.

In Arnhem Land, the Aborigines or Yolngu, still live in the traditional way, hunting, fishing and performing ceremonies that can go from days to sometimes weeks. Arnhem Land art is distinguished by the cross-hatching or 'raark' design.

Often the works portray human or animal figures on them, they can be bold with certain repeating patterns and tell stories of the Dreamtime creation.

There are many different communities in Arnhem Land who use the cross hatching style, albeit with some variation; the 'raark' work illustrates a unity between all that live in Arnhem Land and has a shimmering appearance when finely executed.

Works are still painted in natural ochres & earth pigments, but when artists do use acrylic paint they are applied in the traditional earth pigment colours.

Traditionally, women were not permitted to paint but were able to assist their husbands doing the more repetitious work.

Today that has significantly changed and many women artists from this area are creating exquisite works for the art market.

As Arnhem Land is located close to the sea there are many works depicting animals, fish and plants drawn from that area.

The Tiwi of Bathurst and Melville Islands tend to paint vibrantly coloured crosshatched and dotted non-figurative designs.

The Aboriginal designs are painted on bark baskets (tungas), carved ironwood sculptures and other cultural material which features in Pukumani mortuary ceremonies.

Some early records still exist of white pipeclay paintings in bark shelters within that region.

Elcho Island, north east Arnhem Land, works are bold and strong.

Cross-hatching can often fill the area and figures are painted in black. Red and black diamonds symbolise the Fire which was present during the Creation.

It is said that Baru the crocodile, had his back burnt when he put the fire out and was left scarred with a cracked and rough skin.

Groote Eylandt bark paintings are highly distinctive in the way that figures are shown against a black background, more recent works have the background filled with crosshatched designs.

Paintings show graphic depictions of animal totems, ceremony, creation narratives, geographical mapping and historical events which include the interaction with Maccassan traders.

The Groote Eylandt artistic expression is very particular to that location and the art is not reproduced by any other Aboriginal group.

In Oenpelli, the Xray art depicts the internal organs of an animal, which not only provides anatomical tuition for the young but it also informs that all parts of the animal are equally important, and that those interwoven individual parts are collectively the whole!

ART & MUSIC

THIS WEEKS MUSIC ON RIGHTSANDWRONGS

 IS FOR NICK CLEGG

AND ALL OTHER FAILED POLITICANS

Dear (RADICAL)
Reference CAS-752866-

Thanks for contacting us regarding 'Show Me The Monet' broadcast on BBC Two on 11 May.

I understand that you feel the judges are a poor choice for the programme, and are too influenced by each other to make informed decisions on the programme.

Whilst I appreciate your concerns, I can assure you the Judges are fully qualified to judge the art in each programme. As you have said, the value and love of art it is indeed a subjective matter, and no two people will view a piece the same way. each piece is judged on originality, skill and emotional connection.

The judges experience and profiles can be viewed via the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0117kt8

Nevertheless, we’re guided by the feedback we receive and I can assure you I've registered your complaint on our audience log.

This is a daily report of audience feedback that's made available to all BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

Mark Roberts
BBC Complaints
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

RADICAL NOTES - MEASURE THEIR COMPETENCE BY THE NUMBER OF "YES" DECISIONS THAT DON'T SELL !

ONLY WE ARE NEVER TOLD THAT....................

Uncle Tom's Cabin 1927

 (made 81 years ago,

http://youtu.be/JnZTmNf3VM4

 Sung by Paul Robeson

You hear de lambs a-cryin',
oh shepherd, feed a my sheep.

My saviour spoke these words so sweet:
oh shepherd, feed a my sheep.

Say Peter, if you love me, feed my sheep,
oh shepherd, feed a my sheep.

My Lord I love Thee, Thou does know,
oh shepherd, feed a my sheep.

oh give me grace to love Thee more,
oh shepherd, feed a my sheep.

You hear de lambs a-cryin'
oh shepherd, feed a my sheep.

'Terrorist Nelson Mandela' portrayal in film by Peter Kosminsky

• Peter Kosminsky, who made the controversial Israel-Palestine drama The Promise, is to make a film about Nelson Mandela's early life in South Africa

• Vanessa Thorpe
• The Observer, Sunday 8 May 2011

 Peter Kosminsky, the British writer and director who made The Promise, a controversial Channel 4 drama serial about the history of Israel, is to risk fresh criticism with a feature film about Nelson Mandela's early life as a leader of the ANC's terrorist arm in South Africa.

The writer said that he would not shrink from depicting a violent part of Mandela's past that is often avoided in deference to the statesmanship of his later life. "The story I am trying to tell is of the early years of Mandela up until the imprisonment," he said. "He is rightly now seen as the greatest living human being, a man who delivered South Africa from the brink of a civil war, but he was once on the military wing of the ANC."

Speaking for the first time since the reaction to The Promise, Kosminsky said that as a former documentary-maker he was drawn to contentious subjects, such as the death of Dr David Kelly, tackled in The Government Inspector.

The Promise, which drew comparisons between the Zionist militancy of the 1940s which fought for independence from British rule and Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, has been acclaimed as a powerful drama, but has provoked attacks from some commentators who see it as biased against Israel. The novelist Howard Jacobson has accused the serial of being a "ludicrous piece of brainwashed prejudice". In France, it prompted demonstrations when it was broadcast in March, with an official disclaimer labelling it fiction. In Britain, Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, examined the screenplay after receiving complaints and ruled last month that there had been no breach of its code of conduct. The drama has been nominated for a One World Media Award, with the results announced on Tuesday night, and for a Bafta ahead of the 22 May ceremony.

"I am beaten, but unbowed," said the writer. "The Promise is probably the thing I am most proud of. I knew it would raise hackles with some people, but the thing I have found most difficult, as a Jew, is the suggestion that the criticism of Israel is racist." Kosminsky sees parallels between the situation in Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa. "I would describe it as apartheid. I was not seeking to reflect this view in The Promise, but if you ask me personally, then I do. What is happening in Israel is very akin to the concept of separate development. It reminds me of the Bantustan policy of the South African government."

In the 1940s Bantustan territories were set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa as part of apartheid. The writer said that his approach to Mandela's story would be to "confront people of a certain political persuasion that this is a more complicated man than they might have believed".

The Film4 production, with the working title Young Mandela, is yet to be cast, but will feature the roles of Winnie Mandela; Evelyn, his first wife; Joe Slovo, who led the communist party; and Thabo Mbeki's father, Govan. Kosminsky said that the film would include a scene in which Mandela was shown instructing activists on how to blow up a building, but that he would underline the ANC's policy of avoiding human casualties. "I am not doing a hatchet job on him. I am probably his biggest fan," he said. "I was very involved with the anti-apartheid movement in my youth. In fact I used to give Adelaide Tambo a lift around London."

Kosminsky said that he was driven as much to tell a good story as to explain a period of history. "My primary purpose for making The Promise was artistic." Critics of the serial said that it focused on the lives of rich Israelis and gave a one-sided view. Kosminsky defended his decision to send his naive heroine, Erin, to stay with a wealthy family who had a grandfather who fought an armed campaign in the Mandate period after the second world war with the Zionist paramilitary organisation Irgun. "Her grandfather is based on a man I met at the Irgun museum, and the things he says are almost exactly what was said to me.

"People said I was trying to reinforce old stereotypes, but if you watch a television show looking for prejudices, you are going to find them." Kosminsky said that it was important to examine the moment when people take up an armed struggle, and the moment when, ideally, they can later operate as politicians and statesmen and become involved in peaceful negotiation. "Mandela is a terrorist who became a statesman and a peacemaker. If I had been around in Germany in the 1930s, I might have shot Adolf Hitler if the chance had come along, so I can see how someone might think it was the right thing to do.

"If Nelson Mandela had been executed as a terrorist we would not have had the peaceful transition we had in South Africa. The crucial moment for a former terrorist is the moment they act against their own self-interest – when they turn the other cheek."

THE RADICAL OFFERS A GIFT TO PRINCE WILLIAM

JUST LISTEN BOY !

http://www.we7.com/song/Paul-Robeson/A-Woman-Is-A-Sometime-Thing+?m=0

Songs for the People

Philosophy Football event: After the march we’re having a party

On Saturday 26 March the people of Britain will be marching for an alternative to the cuts. And after the protest we're having a party. Expect to be entertained and inspired in equal measure. Headlined by the incredible spoken word beat ofDan le Sac vs Scrobius Pip. With comedy from the brilliant Josie Long and opening the show the surreal juggling of Rod Laver. Presented in association with the TUC the party will be introduced by Frances O'Grady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC with a specially commissioned film of the day and contributions on the politics of protest from columnist Zoe Williams, Maurice Glassman works with London Citizens, student activist Jessica Riches and Unison National Secretary for Local Government Heather Wakefield. And to close the night the Melstars:music soundsystem will be filling the dancefloor with an upbeat-indie set. At the recently refurbished theatre-pub The New Red Lion 271 City Road, London EC1V 4LA. Nearest tube The Angel. Show starts 7pm. Only standing room now remaining, and hurry, our parties always sell out!

For tickets visit http://www.philosophyfootball.com/view_item.php?pid=638

The Creole Choir of Cuba

 

I met my brother the other day
And gave him my right hand
As soon as ever my back was turned
He scandalized my name

Now do you call that a brother?
No, no
You call that a brother?
No, no
You call that a brother
No, no
Scandalize my name

I met my sister the other day
And gave her my right hand
As soon as ever my back was turned
She too scandalized my name

Now do you call that a sister?
No, no
You call that a sister?
No, no
You call that a sister?
No, no
Scandalize my name

I met my preacher the other day
And gave him my right hand
As soon as ever my back was turned
He too scandalized my name

Now do you call that religion?
No, no
You call that religion?
No, no
You call that religion?
No, no
Scandalize my name.

Which Side Are You On? Lyrics
Artist(Band):Billy Bragg

This government had an idea
And parliament made it law
It seems like it's illegal
To fight for the union any more

Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?

We set out to join the picket line
For together we cannot fail
We got stopped by police at the county line
They said, "Go home boys or you're going to jail"

Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?

It's hard to explain to a crying child
Why her Daddy can't go back
So the family suffer
But it hurts me more
To hear a scab say Sod you, Jack

Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on, boys
Which side are you on?

I'm bound to follow my conscience
And do whatever I can
But it'll take much more than the union law
To knock the fight out of a working man

Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?

 A NEW ENGLAND

Interpret Billy Bragg 1983



I was twentyone years when I wrote this song

I'm twentytwo now, but I won't be for long

People ask me when will you grow up to be a man

But all the girls I loved at school are already pushing prams



I loved you then as I love you still

'Tho I put you on a pedastal, they put you on the pill

I don't feel bad about letting you go

I just feel bad about letting you know



I don't want to change the world

I'm not looking for a new England

I'm just looking for another girl



I loved the words you wrote to me

But that was bloody yesterday

I can't survive on what you send

Everytime you need a friend



I saw two shooting stars last night

I wished on them but that were only satellites

Is it wrong to wish on space hardare?

I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care

To Have And To Have Not Lyrics
Artist(Band):Billy Bragg

Up in the morning and out to school
Mother says there'll be no work next year
Qualifications once the Golden Rule
Are now just pieces of paper

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

If you look the part you'll get the job
In last year's trousers and your old school shoes
The truth is son, it's a buyer's market
They can afford to pick and choose

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because I dress like this
Doesn't mean I'm a communist

The factories are closing and the army's full -
I don't know what I'm going to do
But I've come to see in the Land of the Free
There's only a future for the Chosen Few

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

At twenty one you're on top of the scrapheap
At sixteen you were top of the class
All they taught you at school
Was how to be a good worker
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

All You Fascists - Billy Bragg/ Woody Guthrie

Upcoming Tours

Welcome to the official Billy Bragg site

The internet offers huge potential for artists who want to make music on their own terms. As the old business model crumbles to dust, artists have much to gain from entering into dialogue with their fans, not least from encouraging them to buy their music directly from the farm gate, secure in the knowledge that the money they spend will support the artist in their work.

I want this website to be my main source of communication with the world: songs I record, articles that I write, clips I film on my phone, merchandising I produce, blogs, comments, posts, all will be available here.
 
It's time to start our own revolution and cut out the middleman....

www.billybragg.co.uk/

GasLand (N/A)

Call Mr Robeson

HOW MANY CHARACTERS HAVE PLAYED JAMES BOND

Till now 6 actors have played the role of official James Bond. First Being sean Connery and current Bond being Daniel craig.



To date, there have been eight (8) actors who have played the role of James Bond (007). They are as follows, and are listed in chronological order:
1. Barry Nelson played Bond in a 1954 television production of Casino Royale
2. Sean Connery - 7 Movies
3. David Niven in the 1967 spoof of Casino Royale, see the related link.
4. George Lazenby - 1 Movie
5. Roger Moore - 7 Movies
6. Timothy Dalton - 2 Movies
7. Pierce Brosnan - 4 Movies
8. Daniel Craig - 2 Movies to date

Number 1 and 3 from list above are unofficial.



Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_different_actors_have_played_James_Bond#ixzz1ApKjDp34

Bond 23 confirmed: Daniel Craig back as 007 in new film

James Bond returns to mark 50th anniversary of Dr No after surviving his toughest test ever: the bankruptcy of MGM Studios

• Mark Tran
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 January 2011 08.46 GMT

Daniel Craig will star in Bond 23, reprising the role he has played twice in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Photograph: Eon Productions/PA

The financial problems that threatened to ensnare James Bond have been thwarted, allowing the Ian Fleming hero to return to the screen next year in time for his 50th anniversary in film.

The 23rd Bond film will star Daniel Craig – his third stab at playing 007 – and will be directed by Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty, a darkly comic take on suburbia that won a clutch of Oscars in 2000.

The latest Bond film hit the skids last year when MGM Studios filed for bankruptcy protection.

The company has since been restructured.

The new owners of MGM, along with Bond producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, confirmed last night that 007 will be back on 9 November 2012. Production is set to begin at the end of this year.

There had been fears that Daniel Craig, a more ruthless and cold-blooded Bond than portrayed by Pierce Brosnan, would walk away because of the uncertainty.

But Craig said last year that he had "every confidence" in the films' producers and that he was looking forward to production resuming "as quickly as possible".

Since the film was put on hold Craig has been busy with other films – Cowboys and Aliens, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan have been confirmed as the writers of the screenplay.

MGM has the rights to the Bond films, based on the books by Ian Fleming.

It is thought to be the longest running franchise in film history.

Wilson and Broccoli took over from Broccoli's father, Albert R "Cubby" Broccoli, in 1995 and have produced the most recent films.

James Bond is easily MGM's most profitable franchise.

The 22 Bond movies are third in the list of most successful film franchises, according to the website Box Office Mojo. The last film in the series, 2008's Quantum of Solace, made $586m (£381.6m) worldwide.

The 2006 movie Casino Royale, which unveiled Craig as a meaner Bond, took in $594m.

The first Bond film, starring Sean Connery, was released in October 1962.

Bond 23 will be part of year-long celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Dr No

Thursday 6 January 2011 • 7.30pm

Call Mr. Robeson - A Life with Songs

Written and Performed by Tayo Aluko • piano Michael Conliffe

Theatro Technis • 26 Crowndale Street • London • NW1 1TT

All proceeds to Stop the War Coalition • TICKETS £10 / £8 • Box Office: 0207 387 6617

 PAUL ROBESON is a great and famous actor, singer and civil rights campaigner.

When he gets too radical and outspoken for the establishment's liking, he is branded a traitor to his country, is harassed, and denied opportunities to perform or travel.

This rollercoaster journey through Robeson's remarkable life highlights how his activism caused him to be disowned and disremembered, even by leaders and descendants of the civil rights movement.

It features some famous songs and speeches, including a dramatic rendition of Ol' Man River, and a spectacularly defiant testimony to the Senate House Un-American Activities Committee.

Press Quotes

Readers recommend: songs about change

Last time we focused on glimpses of majesty, this week we're waving off the old and looking forward to the new

Changing of the guard ... Barack Obama and George Bush at the White House. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Hello to every last one of you. Momentous times on the Readers Recommend desk this week – so we've pulled out an old topic to revisit. Next week will be the column's last appearance in the paper. However, fear not, because the blog – the living, breathing heart of this beast – will thrust ever onwards, a new guru at the helm, in the new year.

 

Anyway, more of that later. Firstly, there were well over a thousand posts, so choosing 20 songs was not easy, but it was hugely enjoyable. The idea of royalty is such a rich topic for songwriters with its twists and tricks and turns of phrase.

 

Anyway, the A-list grew into a thing of bejewelled splendour andlooks like this: I Was There (At the Coronation) – Young Tiger; Kill the King – Rainbow; I Love King Selassia – Black Uhuru; Blue Bood – Action Pact; Kings of the Wild Frontier – Adam and the Ants; King of Rock – Run-DMC; The King and Queen of England – Sandy Denny; Is She Conscious? – The Waterboys; Gudbye T'Jane – Slade; Rasputin – Boney M.

 

Here comes the B-list:

 

Royal Family – Lionel Hampton

There is nothing that can't be improved by a blast of Louisville, Kentucky's Lionel Hampton. Just the sound of his music makes you feel glad to be alive. This instrumental is from March 1942, but it might as well be yesterday.

 

I Used to Be a King – Graham Nash

Gorgeous LA folk-pop from 1971. Nash had just split up with Joni Mitchell, so lyrics such as, "In my bed late at night, I miss you, someone is going to take my heart, but no one is going to break my heart again, I used to be a king and everything around me, turned to rust …" may lead you to understand where his head was at.

 

Jig-Saw Puzzle – The Rolling Stones

Asked where he'd be in five years' time, a 21-year-old Mick Jagger told Newsweek: "I hope to be sitting in a country house with four Rolls Royces and spitting at everyone." Such was the trajectory of his life that he became a sort of landed gentry long before that. This most jigsaw puzzle-like band – how on earth do they fit together? – tackle themselves and the chaos around them in a self-referential, Dylan-like manner. The world goes mad while the Queen stands on the sidelines and "bravely" shouts, "what the hell is going on?" The soul of 1968 is right here.

 

Little Queen of Spades – Robert Johnson

This Queen is a "gambling woman" – sex and money and chance and voodoo hoodoo all mixed up to represent the idea of kings and queens. This was recorded during Johnson's final session on 20 June 1937.

 

Satan's Jewel Crown – Emmylou Harris

Written by Edgar Eden and made famous by the Louvin Brothers – them again – here Harris attempts to nail the most famous of what the Satanic Bible considers the Four Crown Princes of Hell. What's more, she wears extremely nice boots on the cover of the 1975 record she sings it on. So there.

 

Guinnevere – Miles Davis

A cover of the Crosby, Stills and Nash tribute to the queen consort of King Arthur, though you'd be hard pressed to guess, to be honest. Not much happens for 18 minutes, but it doesn't happen with absolute grace and charm. A four-note bassline, Khalil Balakrishna's sitar and some relaxed horns. Utterly mesmerising.

 

Queen Bitch – David Bowie

Literally, not a real queen. But, without a doubt, one of the single greatest pop songs ever written.

 

King Ashabanapal (Dillinja Mix) – Funki Porcini

Ninja's chill king got an astonishingly good drum'n'bass remix in 1995. There is not a second of this record that is not brilliant.

 

Princess of the Posse – Queen Latifah

Before she was a movie star Dana Elaine Owens was fully paid-up member of the Native Tongues crew. This, from 1989, is really quite charming.

 

The Ballad of the Royal Scottish Pretender (Posselwaite Lament) – Kenneth Williams

You really need to hear Willliams deliver this in full-on Ramblin Syd Rumpo mode to really appreciate it. Suffice to say, you'll never think about hedgehog pâté (or paraffin rosé) in the same way again.

 

Things are changing next week. Having sat in this seat on and off for some time I know as well as anyone how important the blog is. I have grown to love hundreds of songs that I never would have been exposed to without it. Week in, week out the ideas and suggestions keep coming; it's a remarkably deep well of insight and information. Thank you all for that.

 

More than five years ago Dorian chose Change for a topic and this week we're revisiting it. Why change? Because this is not the end, not some finale, so let's have songs that look forward, songs that have an eye firmly on the horizon. Changes in life, in habits, in movements and ideas. The very idea of change changes too, doesn't it? Things that stay the same die. So what have you got for me?

 

As ever, extra points will be awarded to well-argued examples. Until next week …

 

The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill and the Collabo.

The rulebook: DO post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.

DO post justifications of your choices wherever possible.

DO NOT post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.

DO NOT dump lists of nominations – if you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.

Here's to the new.

Time of truth and nothing but the truth

A Christmas Carol

My Afternoons With Margueritte (15)

The Kids Are All Right (15)

Blood And Gifts

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Directed by Oliver Stone

Thursday 07 October 2010

by Rita Di Santo

Oliver Stone brings the story of finance shark Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) back to the big screen after a 23-year break.

Set in 2008 with Gekko out of prison, the disgraced financier appears on television for his book launch as the icon of the "greed is good" mantra.

Among his fans is Jacob (Shia LaBeouf), a young broker who also happens to be the fiance of Gekko's daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan).

Loosely based on the story of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, the large Wall Street investment banks that collapsed during the 2008 credit crisis, the movie portrays the bankers without sympathy.

Stone's directorial style, as in the original Wall Street, gives a personal view of what happened during the credit crunch, and the new generation of US brokers.

Stone's lens is sharp going into the details of US capitalism's lifestyle. The tone is gloomier and darker than the original and rightly so. Things are considerably worse than in 1987 when the original Wall Street was shot.

Today, the international financial situation is precarious. The "greed factor" has multiplied and the system has got worse.

The message at the end of the movie is clear - the "greed factor" has not stopped, it has just become common practice. The film reflects accurately the changes of the times.

However, this is an absorbing movie but not a pamphlet. It is a story about people. Through individuals we understand the collective context, the great disaster.

Gordon Gekko is older and wiser. Douglas is his usual brilliant self. But the real strength of Stone's film is that it delivers a powerful statement with such admirable dynamism.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is critical of bankers, but not nearly enough. Would it ever be enough?

Duane Eddy

Budrus (PG)

The Maid (15)

South of the Border (15)

HANDEL LARGO SERSE (XERXES) FROM AN OPERA

RADICAL SAYS - THIS PIECE IS USUALLY PLAYED AT FUNERALS BUT IN FACT ITS A COMEDY AND ABOUT A TREE.

I ALWAYS THINK OF A HUGE OAK TREE, I KNOW, GENTLY WAVING IN THE BREEZE, IN ALL ITS MAJESTY. BORN BEFORE ME AND WILL STILL BE LIVING AFTER ME, THE OAK HAS A PLACE IN THE HEARTS OF THE ENGLISH. OUR WOODEN SHIPS WERE MADE OF IT AND OUR FINEST FURNITURE.

YET ITS SO EASY TO GROW FROM AN ACORN.

SO DON'T BE SAD WHEN YOU HEAR THE "LARGO", THINK AGAIN AND TAKE PLEASURE FROM HANDEL'S PIECE OF MUSIC WRITTEN AS A COMEDY ABOUT A TREE.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Serse (Xerxes, HWV 40) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was first performed in London on 15 April 1738. The libretto is adapted by an unknown hand from that by Silvio Stampiglia for an earlier opera of the same name by Giovanni Bononcini in 1694. Stampiglia's libretto was itself based on one by Nicolò Minato that was set by Francesco Cavalli in 1654. The opera is set in Persia in 480 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia, though there is little in either the libretto or music that is relevant to that setting. Xerxes, originally sung by a castrato, is now generally performed by a mezzosoprano or countertenor.

The opening aria, "Ombra mai fù", sung by Xerxes to a tree (Platanus orientalis), is set to one of Handel's best-known melodies, and is often played in an orchestral arrangement, known as Handel's "largo" (despite being marked "larghetto" in the score).

Composition and premiere

In late 1737 the King's Theatre, London commissioned Handel to write two new operas. The first, Faramondo, was premiered on 3 January 1738. By this time, Handel had already begun work on Serse. The first act was composed between 26 December 1737 and 9 January 1738, the second was ready by 25 January, the third by 6 February, and Handel put the finishing touches to the score on 14 February. Serse was first performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket on 15 April 1738.[1]

The first production was a complete failure.[2] The audience may have been confused by the innovative nature of the work. Unlike his other operas for London, Handel included comic (buffo) elements in Serse. Although this had been typical for 17th-century Venetian works such as Cavalli's original setting of the libretto, by the 1730s an opera seria was expected to be wholly serious, with no mixing of the genres of tragedy and comedy or high and low class characters. The musicologist Charles Burney later took Serse to task for violating decorum in this way, writing: "I have not been able to discover the author of the words of this drama: but it is one of the worst Handel ever set to Music: for besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it, which Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio had banished from serios opera."[3] Another unusual aspect of Serse is the number of short, one-movement arias, when a typical opera seria of Handel's time was almost wholly made up of long, three-movement da capo arias. This feature particularly struck the Earl of Shaftesbury, who attended the premiere and admired the opera. He noted "the airs too, for brevity's sake, as the opera would otherwise be too long [,] fall without any recitativ' intervening from one into another[,] that tis difficult to understand till it comes by frequent hearing to be well known. My own judgment is that it is a capital opera notwithstanding tis called a ballad one."[4]

 Later performance history

Serse disappeared from the stage for almost two hundred years. It enjoyed its first modern revival in Göttingen on 5 July 1924 in a version by Oscar Hagen. By 1926 this version had been staged at least 90 times in 15 German cities. Serse's success has continued. [5] According to Winton Dean, Serse is Handel's most popular opera with modern audiences after Giulio Cesare.[6] The very features which 18th-century listeners found so disconcerting - the shortness of the arias and the admixture of comedy - may account for its appeal to the 20th and the 21st centuries.[7]

Helen Shapiro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helen Kate Shapiro (born 28 September 1946) is an English singer and actress. She is best known for her 1960s UK chart toppers, "You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness".

Early life

Shapiro was born at Bethnal Green Hospital in the East End district of Bethnal Green, London,^[1] and brought up in Clapton in the London borough of Hackney, where she attended the Clapton Park Comprehensive School. She is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her parents were too poor to own a record player but they encouraged music in their home (Helen had to borrow a neighbour's player to hear her first single). Shapiro played banjo as a child and sang with her brother Ron occasionally in his youth club jazz group. She had a deep timbre to her voice, unusual in a girl not yet in her teens: school friends gave her the nickname 'Foghorn'. At the age of twelve, she was lead singer of "Susie and the Hoops," a school band which was a trio featuring Marc Bolan (then using his real name of Marc Feld) as guitarist.

Career

In 1961, at the age of fourteen, she had two number one hits in the UK: "You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness"; and, indeed, her first four single releases all went into the top three of the UK Singles Chart. Most of her recording sessions were at EMI's studios at Abbey Road in north west London. Her mature voice made her an overnight sensation, as well as the youngest female chart topper in the UK. At a mere 14 years and 316 days old when "You Don't Know" hit the top, she was nevertheless a year older than Frankie Lymon had been when "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" hit the UK number one slot in 1956.^[1]

Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britain's 'Top Female Singer'. The Beatles' first national tour of Britain in the late winter/early spring of 1963 was as her supporting act. During the course of the tour, the Beatles had their first hit single and John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the song "Misery" intended for her, but Shapiro did not record the composition.^[2] In 1995, during a This is Your Life installment highlighting her life and career, Shapiro revealed, "It was actually turned down on my behalf before I ever heard it, actually. I never got to hear it or give an opinion. It's a shame, really."^{[citation needed]}

By the time she was in her late teens, her career as a pop singer was on the wane. With the new wave of beat music and newer female singers such as Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Lulu - Shapiro appeared old-fashioned and emblematic of the bee-hived pre-Beatles era. She branched out as a performer in stage musicals, a jazz singer, (jazz being her first love musically), and more recently a gospel singer. She played the role of Nancy in Lionel Bart's musical, Oliver! in London's West End and has appeared in British television soap operas; in particular Albion Market where she played one of the main characters up to the time it was taken off-air in August 1986.

Religious connections

In August 1987, Shapiro became a committed believer in Jesus as the Messiah. She has issued four Messianic albums since then, as well as appearing in a number of gospel outreach meetings, singing and telling of how she found Jesus (Yeshua) as her Messiah.

 Recent activities

Shapiro retired from show business at the end of 2002 to concentrate on her gospel outreach evenings. She is married to John Judd, an actor with numerous roles in British television and cinema, she resides in the town of Highworth, Wiltshire.

I'm The Man That Waters The Workers Beer - Lyrics & Chords

Chorus:

Now when I makes the workers' beer,
I puts in strychinine,
Some methylated spirits
And a drop of paraffin;
But since a brew so terribly strong
Might make them terribly queer,
I reaches my hand for the water tap,
And I waters the workers' beer.

Now ladies fair beyond compare,
And be ye maid or wife,
O, sometimes lend a thought for one
Who leads a sorry life;
The water rates are shockingly high,
And malt is shockingly dear,
And there isn't the profit there used to be
In wat'ring the workers' beer.

Now a drop of good beer is good for a man
Who's thirsty and tired and hot,
And I sometimes has a drop for myself
From a very special lot;
But a fat and healthy working class
Is the thing that I most fear,
So I reaches my hand for the water tap,
And I waters the workers' beer.

GIVE US A HAND UP TO REVIVE US AGAIN

Hallelujah, I’m a Bum

1. Oh, why don’t you work
Like other men do?
How the **** can I work
When there’s no work to do?
Hallelujah, I’m a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout,
To revive us again!

2. Oh, I love my boss
And my boss loves me,
And that is the reason
I’m so hungry,
Hallelujah, etc.

3. Oh, the springtime has came
And I’m just out of jail,
Without any money,
Without any bail.
Hallelujah, etc.

4. I went to a house,
And I knocked on the door;
A lady came out, says,
“You been here before.”
Hallelujah, etc.

5. I went to a house,
And I asked for a piece of bread;
A lady came out, says,
“The baker is dead.”
Hallelujah, etc.

6. When springtime does come,
O won’t we have fun,
We’ll throw up our jobs
And we’ll go on the bum.
Hallelujah, etc.

HISTORY OF THE GOONS

Definitions of goon on the Web:

• lout: an awkward stupid person
• hood: an aggressive and violent young criminal

The Goons met in the 1940s before going on to create the most influential comedy show of their era.

Like many of the post war entertainers, they all began performing whilst serving in the forces.

Here is a brief history of the show and its cast.

1939 - WAR. All 4 founder members of the Goons were involved in World War 2 (as was most of the world). Individually, the Goons get involved in entertaining the armed forces.

1945 - WAR ends. Score 2-0 to the allies. The atomic bomb stops play.

1949 - By now all 4 original Goons are in London carving out individual careers on stage and radio and Spike is getting into script writing.

They begin to gather at a pub called 'Graftons' which becomes a popular watering hole for them and other up and coming stars.

Jimmy Grafton, the Landlord of the pub (and scriptwriter) is instrumental in getting the Goons started at the BBC.

He will also edit the early series of the show.

1950 - The BBC are approached by the Goons with their ideas for a new radio show. They are eventually given a chance.

1951 - A pilot episode was made in early February and the first series started on the BBC in May.

The first series was titled "Crazy People" as the BBC did not like the name "The Goon Show".

These early shows contained a number of short sketches and musical interludes.

Many of the characters to be loved later pop up in these early shows.

 By the end of the year the show finally gets its intended title "The Goon Show".

1952 - At the end of the second series, 4 becomes 3 as Michael Bentine leaves to pursue other aspects of his life and career.

The shows become more developed with the same characters appearing each week.

The madcap comedy, characters and sound effects become more refined.

1953 - The original announcer (Andrew Timothy) leaves, saying he "feared for his sanity".

He is replaced by Wallace 'Bill' Greenslade. During series 3 Spike suffers his first nervous breakdown and misses 12 programs.

Larry Stephens and Maurice Whiltshire do most of the writing, with Sellers and other actors playing Milligan's characters during this period.

With the next (4th) series, the show begins to have a single plot giving the show its well known format.

1954 - The BBC Transcription service starts to record shows, making them available to organisations in other countries.

This gives the show an international audience. Eric Sykes starts to assist in writing some shows.

1954 to 1959 - The show becomes hugely sucessful with large listening figures.

All 3 Goons become established household names both for The Goon Show and in their own right.

1959 - Milligan announces that the 9th series will be the last.

At the end of one recording session a group of girls hand over a petition signed by 1,030 listeners pleading with him to carry on writing The Goons.

Harry Secombe also misses the recording of the final episode.

One more series was made.

1960 - The tenth and last series ends with the shows popularity still high.

"It's better to go out on top".

1960 Onwards (After the Goons) - Harry Secombe continues to be a popular and well loved entertainer and singer. Spike performs on stage, writes books, plays, poetry and TV comedy including the acclaimed "Q" series.

Peter becomes an international film star with classics such as Dr Strangelove, The Pink Panther, Being There and many more (plus a few terrible ones that we don't like to talk about!).

The Goons occasionally appear together in film and TV etc.

1961 - Announcer Wallace Greenslade dies unexpectedly at his home in Weybridge, Surrey, UK.

1963/64 - The Telegoons is shown on BBC-TV.

These are 15 minute puppet shows using some re-worked Goon Show scripts.

This leads to a cartoon version of The Telegoons appearing in various comic strips.

1972 - The Goons reunite to do a one off special called "The Last Goon Show of All".

1980 - Peter Sellers dies aged 54 after years of worsening heart problems.

1996 - Michael Bentine dies aged 74.

2001 - Harry Secombe dies aged 79.

2002 - Spike Milligan dies aged 83. That's all folks!

Want to know more? - A lot of the above details are sourced from the book "The Goon Show Companion" by Wilmut & Grafton.

If you want to find out more about the history of The Goons and the show, it is well worth a read.

What makes the sound of vuvuzelas so annoying?

• 17:54 14 June 2010 by Trevor Cox

First of festival frolics on IoW

Festival: Tens of thousands of music fans are heading to the Isle of Wight this weekend for the first of the summer's music festivals, headlined by former Beatle Paul McCartney.

55,000 people are expected at the Isle of Wight Festival for acts including Jay-Z, The Strokes, Blondie and Pink.

And to mark the 40th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's legendary performance at the festival - his last major event before he died - a special show by tribute act Are You Experienced? was held for campers last night.

At 91, a new album from Pete Seeger

By Kevin O'Hare

Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger celebrates his 91st birthday on May 3 with a new CD, Tomorrow's Children, due for release on July 27 by Appleseed Recordings. Tomorrow's Children, Seeger's first studio CD since his Grammy-winning 2008 release, At 89, is a loving snapshot of Seeger recording with children in his hometown of Beacon, NY.

Says Seeger, "The future of the entire human race lies in the hands of children so I felt this was an important collaboration."

Starting in 2008, Seeger became a regular visitor to a local Beacon elementary school where teacher Tery Udell had been working with her fourth graders to sing and write songs about what they were studying.

For more than a week, Seeger interacted with every child in the school, sharing his own music and past history and encouraging the kids to do likewise; he brought along some of the kids to perform with him at local festivals and events.

Assembling in a local studio, Seeger, producer/musician David Bernz, some of the Clearwater staff, musical friends and neighbors and, most importantly, the schoolchildren known as "The Rivertown Kids" subsequently recorded about twenty songs (all with Seeger performing vocally and/or instrumentally) that show that the values of environmental stewardship and social justice have been embraced by the youngsters.

Some of the songs are Seeger staples, such as "Take It from Dr. King" (which Pete performed on "Late Night with David Letterman" last year) and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (with new verses added by Pete's wife, Toshi), others were written by some of the adults at the sessions, but most display "the folk process" that Seeger had imparted to the kids - that adapting the lyrics of older songs to fit current situations is the key to keeping music relevant and meaningful. Three of Seeger's tunes are given new words by the children.

There's also a new song co-written by Pete, David Bernz and author/activist Harvey Wasserman, "Solartopia," with Pete, special guest Dar Williams, and David Bernz trading verses about the need for a nuclear-free world that uses pollution-free energy sources.

The dictum, "Think globally, act locally," has long been a guiding Seeger principle, and in recent years he's attracted new warriors on the global level, partly due to a trio of multi-artist tribute CDs to Pete's music released by the Pennsylvania-based Appleseed Recording label, which presented new versions of Pete's songs as recorded by Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Natalie Merchant and other politically conscious performers.

Springsteen subsequently assembled his Seeger Sessions CD, DVD and international tours to spread Seeger's messages of music as entertainment, as education, and as social change.

Last year's 90th birthday party for Pete at Madison Square Garden included musicians from Springsteen to John Mellencamp to Dave Matthews and helped raise money for Pete's beloved Sloop Clearwater and the nonprofit organization he founded to help preserve the Hudson River. Seeger's most recent studio album,

At 89 (2008, Appleseed), was packed with songs that directly confronted issues of ecology, activism, economically driven wars and the endangered state of the human race and earned a Grammy Award as "Best Traditional Folk Recording.

We Shall Overcome

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the US civil rights movement. The lyrics of the song are derived from the refrain of a gospel song by Charles Albert Tindley. The song was published in 1947 as "We Will Overcome" in the People's Songs Bulletin (a publication of People's Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director and guiding spirit). It appeared in the bulletin as a contribution of and with an introduction by Zilphia Horton, then music director of the Highlander Folk School of Monteagle, Tennessee, a school that trained union organizers. It was her favorite song and she taught it to Pete Seeger,^[1] who included it in his repertoire, as did many other activist singers, such as Frank Hamilton and Joe Glazer, who recorded it in 1950. The song became associated with the Civil Rights movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan stepped in as song leader at Highlander, and the school was the focus of student non-violent activism. It quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Seeger and other famous folksingers in the early 1960s, such as Joan Baez, sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Since its rise to prominence, the song, and songs based on it, have been used in a variety of protests worldwide.

Origins

The phrase "I'll Overcome Someday" first appears in print in the published lyrics to a 1901 hymn or gospel music composition by Charles Albert Tindley of Philadelphia. Tindley was an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister who composed many hymns and lyrics, some 50 of which are known to have survived. Over time, others added newer lyrics from the common store of stock phases used in spirituals, including the phrase, "Deep in my heart." Various versions of the spiritual were sung in black churches in the 1800s and at integrated meetings of black and white coal miners in the early 1900s.^[2] According to music historian James J. Fuld, although Tindley's lyrics are similar to those sung today, his tune was not the one now associated with the song.^[3]

Sometime between 1900 and 1946, someone, most likely Atron Twigg, married Tindley's lyrics to the opening and closing melody of the famous nineteenth century spiritual, "No More Auction Block For Me",^[4] also known as, "Many Thousands Gone".^[5] This song, or rather the lyrics to this song, under the title "Many thousands Gone", was number 35 in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's collection of Negro Spirituals that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of June, 1867, with a comment by Higginson on how such songs were composed:

Even of this last composition, however, we have only the approximate date, and know nothing of the mode of composition. Allan Ramsay says of the Scotch songs, that, no matter who made them, they were soon attributed to the minister of the parish whence they sprang. And I always wondered, about these, whether they had always a conscious and definite origin in some leading mind, or whether they grew by gradual accretion, in an almost unconscious way. On this point I could get no information, though I asked many questions, until at last, one day when I was being rowed across from Beaufort to Ladies' Island, I found myself, with delight, on the actual trail of a song. One of the oarsmen, a brisk young fellow, not a soldier, on being asked for his theory of the matter, dropped out a coy confession. "Some good spirituals," he said, "are start jess out o' curiosity. I been a-raise a sing, myself, once."

My dream was fulfilled, and I had traced out, not the poem alone, but the poet. I implored him to proceed.

"Once we boys," he said, "went for to tote some rice, and de nigger-driver, he keep a-callin' on us; and I say, 'O, de ole nigger-driver!' Den another said, 'First thing my mammy told me was, notin' so bad as a nigger-driver.' Den I made a sing, just puttin' a word, and den another word."

Then he began singing, and the men, after listening a moment, joined in the chorus as if it were an old acquaintance, though they evidently had never heard it before. I saw how easily a new "sing" took root among them. ^[6]

Coincidentally, Bob Dylan claims that he used this very same tune from "No More Auction Block" for his composition, "Blowin' in the Wind." ^[7] Thus similarities of melodic and rhythmic patterns imparted cultural and emotional resonance ("the same feeling") to three different, and historically very significant songs.

It has also been pointed out that the note progression of the tune has a noticeable family resemblance to the famous lay Catholic hymn "O Sanctissima" (also known as "The Sicilian Mariner's Hymn") collected (or composed) in Italy by Johann Gottfried Herder in the late Eighteenth Century.^[8] Arguably an even closer resemblance is to Caro Mio Ben attributed to Neapolitan composer Giuseppe Giordani; this is also a late 18th Century Italian song and was a staple of 19th century voice teachers.

Role of Highlander Folk School

In the fall of 1945 in Charleston, South Carolina, members of the Food and Tobacco Workers Union (who were mostly female and African American), began a five-month strike against the American Tobacco Company. To keep up their spirits during the cold, wet winter of 1945-46, one of the strikers, a woman named Lucille Simmons, led a slow "long meter style" version of the gospel hymn, "We'll Overcome" (I'll Be All Right") to end each day's picketing. Union organizer, Zilphia Horton, who was the wife of the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (later Highlander Research and Education Center), learned it from Lucille Simmons. Horton was (1935-56) Highlander's music director, and it became her custom to end group meetings each evening by leading this, her favorite song. During the Presidential Campaign of Henry A. Wallace, "We Will Overcome" was printed in Bulletin No. 3 (Sept., 1948), 8, of People's Songs with an introduction by Horton saying that she had learned it from the interracial Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Food and Tobacco Workers' Union workers and had found it to be extremely powerful. Pete Seeger, a founding member, and for three years Director of People's Songs, learned it from Horton's version in 1947.^[9] Seeger writes: "I changed it to 'We shall'... I think I liked a more open sound; 'We will' has alliteration to it, but 'We shall' opens the mouth wider; the 'i' in 'will' is not an easy vowel to sing well [...]."^[10] Seeger also added some verses ("We'll walk hand in hand" and "The whole wide world around").

In 1950, the CIO's Department of Education and Research released the album, Eight New Songs for Labor, sung by Joe Glazer ("Labor's Troubador"), and the Elm City Four (songs on the album were: "I Ain't No Stranger Now," "Too Old to Work," "That's All," "Humblin' Back," "Shine on Me," "Great Day," "The Mill Was Made of Marble," and "We Will Overcome"). During a Southern CIO drive, Glazer taught the song to country singer Texas Bill Strength, who cut a version that was later picked up by 4-Star Records.^[11]

The song made its first recorded appearance as "We Shall Overcome" (rather than "We Will Overcome") in 1952 on a disc recorded by Laura Duncan (soloist) and The Jewish Young Singers (chorus) conducted by Robert De Cormier co-produced by Ernie Lieberman and Irwin Silber on Hootenany Records (Hoot 104-A) (Folkways, FN 2513, BCD15720), where it is identified as a Negro Spiritual.

Frank Hamilton, a folk singer from California who was a member of People's Songs and later The Weavers, picked up Seeger's version. Hamilton's friend and traveling companion, fellow-Californian Guy Carawan, learned the song from Hamilton. Carawan and Hamilton, accompanied by Ramblin Jack Elliot, visited Highlander in the early fifties and would also have heard Zilphia Horton sing the song there. When, in 1959, Guy Carawan succeeded Horton as music director at Highlander, he reintroduced it at the school. It was the young (many of them teenagers) student-activists at Highlander, however, who gave the song the words and rhythms we know it by today, when they sang it to keep their spirits up during the frightening police raids on Highlander and their subsequent stays in jail in 1959-60. Because of this, Carawan has been reluctant to claim credit for the song's widespread popularity. In the PBS video We Shall Overcome, Julian Bond credits Carawan with teaching and singing the song at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, N.C., in 1960. From there, it spread orally and became an anthem of Southern African American labor union and civil rights activism.^[12] Seeger also has publicly, in concert, credited Carawan with the primary role in teaching and popularizing the song within the Civil Rights Movement.

In August 1963, folksinger Joan Baez memorably led a crowd of 300,000 in singing "We Shall Overcome" at the Lincoln Memorial during A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington. President Lyndon Johnson used the phrase "we shall overcome" in addressing Congress on March 15, 1965,^[13] following violent, "bloody Sunday" attacks on civil rights demonstrators during the Selma to Montgomery marches, thus legitimizing the protest movement. Farmworkers in the United States later sang the song in Spanish during strikes and grape boycotts of the late 1960s.^{[citation needed]} The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association adopted "we shall overcome" as a slogan and used it in title of their retrospective autobiography publication, We Shall Overcome - The History of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland 19 68-1978.^[14][15] The film Bloody Sunday depicts march leader MP Ivan Cooper leading the song shortly before the Bloody Sunday shootings. In 1997, the Christian men's ministry, Promise Keepers featured the song on their worship CD for that year - The Making Of A Godly Man featuring (black) worship leader Donn Thomas (along with the Maranatha! Promise Band). Bruce Springsteen re-interpreted the song, which has been included on Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Tribute to Pete Seeger and his 2006 album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made use of "we shall overcome" in the final Sunday March 31, 1968 speech before his assassination^[16] In a 1965 speech^[17] King explained the reasons why he believed "we shall overcome" in terms very similar to those used in a 1957 speech to support his belief in "an other-loving God working forever through history for the establishment of His kingdom".^[18] These were:

• Quoting 19th century radical Unitarian Minister Theodore Parker, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
• Quoting Thomas Carlyle, because no lie can live forever.
• Quoting William Cullen Bryant, truth crushed to earth will rise again.
• Quoting James Russell Lowell, truth is forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne - yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, stands God within the shadow keeping watch above His own.

"We Shall Overcome" was notably sung by the U.S. Senator for New York Robert F. Kennedy, who led anti-apartheid crowds in choruses from the rooftop of his car while touring South Africa in 1966.^[19] It was also the song Abie Nathan chose to play as the Voice of Peace on October 1, 1993.^{[citation needed]}, and as a result it found its way to South Africa in the later years of the anti-apartheid movement.^[20]

"We Shall Overcome" later was adopted by various anti-Communist movements in the Cold War and post-Cold War. In his memoir about his years teaching English in Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution, Mark Allen wrote:

^[

In India, renowned poet Girija Kumar Mathur composed its literal translation in Hindi "Hum Honge Kaamyab / Ek Din" which became a popular patriotic/spiritual song during the 1980s, particularly in schools. In Bengali-speaking India and in Bangladesh there are two versions, both popular among school-children and political activists. "Amra Karbo Joy" (a literal translation) was translated by the Bengali folk singer Hemanga Biswas and re-recorded by Bhupen Hazarika. Another version, translated by Shibdas Bandyopadhyay, "Ek Din Surjyer Bhor" (literally translated as "One Day The Sun Will Rise") was recorded by the Calcutta Youth Choir arranged by Ruma Guha Thakurta during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence and became one of the largest selling Bengali records. It was a favorite of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and regularly sung at public events after Bangladesh gained independence.^{[citation needed]} In the Indian State of Kerala, the traditional Communist stronghold, the song became popular in college campuses in late 1970s. It was the struggle song of the Students Federation of India SFI, the largest student organisation in the country. The song translated to the regional language Malayalam by N. P. Chandrasekharan, an activist of SFI. The translation followed the same tune of the original song. Later it was also published in Student, the monthly of SFI in Malayalam.^{[citation needed]}

The melody was also used (with due credit to Tinsley) in a symphony by American composer William Rowland^{[citation needed]}. In 1999 National Public Radio included "We Shall Overcome" on their NPR 100 list of most important American songs of the 20th century.^[21]. As a reference to the line, on January 20, 2009, after the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th U.S. President, a man holding the banner, "WE HAVE OVERCOME" was seen near the Capitol, a day after hundreds of people posed with the sign on Martin Luther King Jr. day ^[22]

Copyright and royalties

"We Shall Overcome" was originally written by Rev. Charles Tindley, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As the work was composed in 1901, it is now in the public domain, according to US Copyright law. The present version is an adaptation by Zilphia Horton, Guy Carawan, Frank Hamilton, and Pete Seeger, who share the artists' half of the rights, and TRO (The Richmond Organization, which includes Ludlow Music, Essex, Folkways Music, and Hollis Music), which holds the publishers rights (or 50% of the royalty money). Pete Seeger explained that he took out a defensive copyright on advice of his publisher, TRO, to prevent someone else from doing so and "At that time we didn't know Lucille Simmons' name."^[23] Their royalties go to the "We Shall Overcome" Fund, administered by Highlander under the trusteeship of the "writers" (i.e., the holders of the writers' share of the copyright, who, strictly speaking, are the arrangers and adapters). Such funds are used to give small grants for cultural expression involving African Americans organizing in the U.S. South

Bond movie suspended

Tue 20 Apr 9:14 AM

 

The follow-up to the James Bond adventure ‘Quantum of Solace’ has been put on hold because of the uncertainty surrounding MGM studios.

Work on the 23rd Bond movie, which would have seen Daniel Craig once again playing the suave superspy, has been postponed, with the franchise’s producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, releasing the following statement: "Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on Bond 23 indefinitely.

''We do not know when development will resume and do not have a date for the release of Bond 23.”

Craig added, “I have every confidence in Barbara and Michael's decision and look forward to production resuming as quickly as possible."

The movie, which has Sam Mendes listed as a director, was set to be released next year.

• Summary - Brief history of Mozart
• 1756-1772 - The Formative Years
• 1773-1777 - Munich, Salzburg & Vienna
• 1777-1781 - Early Adulthood; Struggles at Work
• 1781-1787 - The Independent Life
• 1788-1791 - The Final Years

FN1: Mozart also used "Amadé" in some writings.

Hancock's Half-Hour

The Spinners (UK band)

Music and lyrics: How the brain splits songs

• 22:00 09 March 2010 by Jessica Hamzelou

Haiti single hits record for sales

Arts: The star-studded cover of Everybody Hurts has become the fastest-selling charity single this century, the Official Charts Company has said.

The record, masterminded by music supremo Simon Cowell to help Haiti earthquake victims, has topped the 200,000 sales mark in just two days.

The Official Charts Company said the record was also on course to have one of the biggest first-week sales of any single since 2000.

SONGS OF INNOCENCE

Introduction (Innocence)(Notes)

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a Lamb!"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again;"
So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!"
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read."
So he vanished from my sight,

And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

The Shepherd (Notes)

How sweet is the Shepherd's sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lamb's innocent call,
And he hears the ewe's tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.

The Blossom (Notes)

Merry, Merry Sparrow,
Under Leaves so green,
A Happy Blossom
Sees you swift as arrow
Seek your cradle narrow
Near my Bosom.

Pretty, Pretty Robin,
Under leaves so green,
A happy Blossom
Hears you sobbing, sobbing,
Near my Bosom.

The Schoolboy (Notes)

I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me.
Oh, what sweet company!

But to go to school in a summer morn,
Oh! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,

Worn through with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?

O, father and mother, if buds are nipped
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,

Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?

Holy Thursday (Notes)

'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green;
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow.

O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among;
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor:
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

The Little Black Boy (

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh! my soul is white.
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black as if bereaved of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say:

"Look on the rising sun, - there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away;
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive

Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

And we are put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

For when our souls have learned the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear his voice
Saying: 'Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice!' "

Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
And thus I say to little English boy:

When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
Notes)

The Lamb (notes)

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb;

He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!

Night (

The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon like a flower,
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have took delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,

And each sleeping bosom.

They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are covered warm;
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm:
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.

When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
They pitying stand and weep, -
Seeking to drive their thirst away,
And keep them from the sheep.
But if they rush dreadful,
The angels, most heedful,
Receive each mild spirit,

New worlds to inherit.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold,
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold,
Saying, "Wrath, by his meekness,
And, by his health, sickness
Is driven away
Form our immortal day.

"And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
I can lie down and sleep;
Or think on him who bore thy name,
Graze after thee and weep.
For, washed in life's river,
My bright mane for ever
Shall shine like the gold,
As I guard o'er the fold."
Notes)

The Chimney Sweeper (Notes)

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

The Divine Image (

To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, pity, Peace and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,

Concert for Haiti

The First Time (Ever I Saw Your Face) (Ewan MacColl)

The first time ever I saw your face,
I thought the sun rose in your eyes,
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the night and the empty skies, my love,
To the night and the empty skies.

The first time ever I kissed your mouth,
I felt the earth turn in my hand,
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love,
That was there at my command.

The first time ever I lay with you,
And felt your heart beat close to mine,
I thought our joy would fill the earth
And would last till the end of time, my love,
And would last till the end of time.

The first time ever I saw your face,
I thought the sun rose in your eyes,
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the night and the empty skies, my love,
To the night and the empty skies.

####.... Written by Ewan MacColl for his wife, Peggy Seeger, and originally recorded by the Kingston Trio on their album New Frontier in 1962, ten years before Roberta Flack made it into a super hit on her debut album First Take ....####

DIRTY OLD TOWN

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Clouds are drifting across the moon
Cats are prowling on their beat
Springs a girl in the street at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I'm going to make me a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
Will chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Dirty Old Town (Vx2)
Father's Song
The First Time (Ever I Saw Your Face)
Joy Of Living
Manchester Rambler (V)
Net Hauling Song ~ Traditional
Shoals Of Herring (V)
Up The Pond



Biographical Notes

Ewan MacColl was born James Miller and was a noted folk singer, actor, playwright, musicologist, and songwriter. His parents were from Scotland and relocated to Salford, Lancashire, England, where he was born. His parents were laborers and socialists, well-versed in Scottish, Irish, and English folk songs. MacColl left school to work as a laborer and mechanic when only 14, and became a strong union supporter which showed in his songs over the years. He changed his name in 1949, and, after moving to London in the 1950s, became an important figure in the emerging British folk song revival. He founded the Ballads And Blues Club (later renamed the Singers Club) and was active in promoting folk music in Britain. In 1962, MacColl was refused a visa to enter the United States because of his political leanings. This caused a furor in the folk music community, and he was eventually allowed into the country.

The key art exhibitions of 2010

From Van Gogh at the Royal Academy to the British Museum's West African sculptures, a preview of the essential shows for 2010.

 By Richard Dorment
Published: 12:01PM GMT 29 Dec 2009

Next year begins with a Royal Academy blockbuster, but this one with a difference. The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters (Jan 23-April 18) will put the letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo (often illustrated with quick sketches of the picture he is working on) next to the paintings he discusses in them. It will be like listening to Van Gogh’s unguarded thoughts about his own work.

The title of the show is significant: the artist we meet in these letters isn’t the wild-eyed madman whose brush was somehow the extension of his tormented soul, but a clear-eyed professional who speaks and reads three languages fluently, and is as eloquent about the works of other artists as he is about his own. Book now, and if possible go early or late in the day: this is an intimate show and queuing to read the letters will ruin the experience for you.

The National Gallery starts the year with an international loan exhibition focusing on one of its most popular paintings – Paul Delaroche’s monumental historical pastiche The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (Feb 24-May 23). As a child I was told the following no doubt apocryphal story: the picture looks the way it does because the artist bet a friend that he could paint a grand salon machine with five full-length figures, none of whom look out at the spectator. True or not, I think of it every time I look at it.

Concurrently with the National Gallery show, the Wallace Collection will be putting on a display of its outstanding collection of small-scale paintings by Delaroche.

A month later in Trafalgar Square, we’ll see a gem of an exhibition devoted to the Danish Golden Age painter Christen Kobke (1810-48), a painter of crystalline landscapes, limpidly clear portraits and intimate interiors. Over the summer there will be a hoot of a show about the National Gallery’s fakes and forgeries and how they are detected (June 30-Sept 12) . And then the year ends with Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals. If you are anything like me, your heart doesn’t leap at the thought of seeing a lot of Canalettos at the same time, but every time you find yourself really looking at one, you are seduced all over again by his treatment of light and colour and detail.

Tate Modern will wipe that smile right off your face with a show devoted to the tragic – and wonderful – American painter Arshile Gorky (Feb 10-May 3). Born in Armenia, as a child he survived the Turkish genocide in which his mother died. He found happiness and success in America, only to have it snatched from him again when ill health and a failing marriage led him to take his own life. His unique, highly autobiographical semi-abstract paintings of the Forties are the direct predecessors of Jackson Pollock’s, and also a strong influence on the work of Cy Twombly.

Next up is Henry Moore at Tate Britain, overdue for reassessment (Feb 24-Aug 15), with Chris Ofili in tandem (Jan 27-May 16) in a mid-career retrospective. Much as I love Ofili’s art, it will be interesting to see whether he can sustain a show of any size without becoming repetitive.

At Tate Modern, there is a show of an artist who means little to me, the Dutch designer, architect and typographer Theo van Doesburg (Feb 4-May 16). His work is too boring to sustain a whole exhibition on its own, and so will be shown alongside contemporaries including Hans Arp, El Lissitzky, and Kurt Schwitters.

Potentially the exhibition of the year opens at the British Museum in March with Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa (March 4-June 6), which highlights the culture of what is now Nigeria from the 12th to 15th century, and its sculptures in stone, terracotta and copper. It was a witty bit of scheduling, I thought, for the BM to run this show concurrently with Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings (April 22-July 25), which will chart the development of drawing as an independent art form and means of preserving ideas, as opposed to a tool in the creative process of making a painting.

Then, at the end of the year, the BM mounts a show that should pack them in – Journey Through the Afterlife: The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead includes coffins, masks, statues, amulets and papyrus and jewellery (Nov 4-March 6, 2011).

It’s odd how venues you used to take for granted suddenly, and by some mysterious alchemy, can’t seem to put on a dull show. For me, that’s happened at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, which is always enjoyable, but in the past couple of years has been nothing less than sensational. I slightly wish their 2010 offering hadn’t been called Victoria & Albert: Art & Love because the Queen and Prince Consort were passionate collectors of contemporary artists such as Landseer, Leighton and Frith, but also pioneering in the Prince’s taste for gold-ground Italian panel paintings (March 19-Oct 31).

In recent years, I’ve been depressed to watch the Scottish National Gallery cave in to what I assume is Scottish Nationalist pressure to include works by Scottish artists in every show they do, whether that means putting some awful daub by William McTaggart next to a Monet or John “Spanish” Phillip near a Velázquez. This year, it is heartening to see that they are putting on a show called Impressionist Gardens, curated by Clare Wilsden, whose book of that title opened my eyes to the importance that garden design played in the work of Monet, Renoir, Manet and Sisley (July 31 July-Oct 17).

The Hayward Gallery will be closed for repairs during the first half of 2010, but I really look forward to Move: Art and Dance Since the Sixties (Oct 13-Jan 9, 2011), which will investigate the interaction between the visual arts and dance, and will include work by Lygia Clark, Robert Morris and Bruce Nauman.

The Serpentine Gallery kicks off with Richard Hamilton: Modern Moral Matters (March 3-April 25), essentially a retrospective, and over the summer will stage what should be a thrilling display of photos by Turner Prize winner Wolfgang Tillmans (June 26-Oct 20). Judging by the photos included in the press release, I expect to be delighted by the Whitechapel’s show of 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Jan 21-April 11).

As the Serpentine proved early on, it is miraculous how smaller museums, far from being overshadowed by Tate, the BM, V&A and National Gallery, nimbly stage the kind of lively shows that fall under the big guys’ radar. An example is the show the Courtauld Gallery will mount over the winter around one of its greatest treasures – Michelangelo Buonarroti’s complex allegorical drawing The Dream of Human Life, presented to the young Roman nobleman Tommaso de Cavalieri (February 18 - May 16 2010.). The masterpiece will be shown with letters and poems addressed by the besotted sculptor to the young man.

Then in the autumn comes a major loan exhibition that looks in depth at another masterpiece owned by the Courtauld, Cézanne’s Card Players, including the oil sketches and pencil and watercolour studies (Oct 21-Jan 16, 2011).

In the spring, the Wallace Collection will be showing Renaissance and Baroque bronzes from the collection of the American architect Peter Marino (April 29-July 25). I’ve seen many of the works that will be coming and can tell you that they are of the highest possible quality, yet the collection has never been shown in public before.

Dulwich Picture Gallery continues its consistently surprising exhibition programme in 2010 with a show that I think no other institution in this country would have dared to do, least of all Tate Britain: an exhibition about the Wyeth family of artists, whose best-known member, Andrew, divides Americans equally between those who think he is America’s finest artist and those who think he’s a sentimental illustrator (June 9-Aug 22).

And then, following a show at the Wallace a few years ago, Dulwich will introduce us to the strange, romantic art of the 17th century Italian artist Salvator Rosa, emphasising his love of the occult, bandits, wild places, magic and witches (Sept 15-Nov 28).

RADICAL SAYS- PLEASE PASS IT ON TO THOSE BASED NEARER BANGKOK. PLEASEASK THEM FOR A REPORT ON THE FILM

Avatar (12A)

Directed by James Cameron

Thursday 17 December 2009

by Jeff Sawtell

James Cameron's Avatar (12A)

Avatar is another blockbuster from writer-director James Cameron, whose record includes Terminator, True Lies and Titanic.

It has been hailed as the most expensive epic ever devised, including as it does the most advanced cinematic technology to date.

Cameron employs this to tell the same old story about conquering a new world, discovering a new fuel and then contriving to evict the indigenous inhabitants.

This time, in this eagerly awaited feature, that planet is Pandora, the energy is "unobtainium" and the aboriginals a race of giant blue surfs called Na'vi who are forced to suffer from imperial invasion.

Titanic broke all the box-office records while being savaged by the critics. Avatar also looks to exceed expectations, despite the critics.

Nonetheless it's a stunning, spectacular epic which reminds us all of the movie magic first experienced at a Saturday matinee picture show.