News & Updates — soundtrack
Fontella Bass / July 3, 1940 - Dec 26, 2012
I want to give some birthday love to one of my favorite figures from the '60s soul scene, the underrated Fontella Bass! Fontella is most remembered for a song that everyone knows but many people think is by Aretha Franklin! "Rescue Me" was a #1 hit in 1965 for Chess Records, their biggest seller since Chuck Berry's mid-'50s reign. Bass was denied songwriting credit, despite her contribution as a co-author. The tune has lasted forever and has been covered many, many times, as well as used in movies, ads, etc. The song was banned from radio by Clear Channel after...
Bernard Herrmann / June 29, 1911 - Dec 24, 1975
A very significant 20th-century composer, Bernard Herrmann is best known for his film scores, especially for Alfred Hitchcock. A Russian-American Jew, he grew up in NYC and found work as a composer and conductor in the world of classical music after his schooling at Julliard. During the Great Depression of the '30s he was able to put together his own orchestra of out-of-work musicians and played the music of underknown composers, including Charles Ives, whom Herrmann championed. He did a lot of work for Orson Welles, including scoring Welles' first film Citizen Kane, as well as several radio works such as...
R.D. Burman / June 27, 1939 - Jan 4, 1994
Shout-out to the Bollywood film composer extraordinaire Rahul Dev Burman, born today in 1939. As someone who didn't grow up with Bollywood movies, my big ears found some of the wacky, funky, psychedelic soundtracks that seemed to annoy my Hindi friends. Often times the craziest tunes to my ears would be from R.D. Burman. His wife was the great singer Asha Bhosle, who often worked with him. He has been a popular presence in Hindi film music since the mid-'60s and continues to be popular long after his passing. Often a trendsetter in the industry, his soundtracks included Indian folk...
Harry Partch / June 24, 1901 - Sept 3, 1974
A true original, Harry Partch not only built his own instruments of functional architectural and artistic beauty, but he also invented an entire system of music for which to play them, using an octave of 43 notes, just intonation and microtones. While a ton of theoretical thought went into these instruments, they can also be listened to on just a superficial level, meaning you don't need an articulate knowledge of music theory to appreciate them. The instruments, and resulting music, can be clanging, droning, hypnotic, theatrical, noisy or relaxing, working in systematic ensemble. The compositions will often combine theater and/or...
Mitar "Suba" Subotic / June 23, 1961 - Nov 2, 1999
Another one gone way, way too young, Suba was already one of Brazil's top producers when he died from a studio fire in 1999 at just 38. Serbian-born, he started playing accordion as a child. Later on he was playing keyboards in punk bands in Yugoslavia and was producing new wave, electronic and experimental ambient music before heading to Brazil in the late '80s to study and work with Afro-Brazilian music. He permanently relocated to São Paulo in the early '90s. His career in Brazil saw him working on jingles and for fashion shows and dance & theater companies, while...