Popular Music - USA, England, and Australia
Three Shows
1 - A Taste of the Sixties (1 hour)
Bob Dylan opens with a 1964 performance of “Mr. Tambourine Man” followed by Joan Baez singing Dylan’s “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word”. Next, Procol Harum performs “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and “Kaleidoscope” from 1967 and a 1971 rendition of “A Salty Dog”. Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Marrakesh Express” follows, and then we hear “Mountains of the Moon” performed by the Grateful Dead in 1969. Fever Tree sings “Return of the Native”, also called “San Francisco Girls” and George Harrison sings “My Sweet Lord”. George Harrison is joined by Eric Clapton at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 singing George’s song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Joni Mitchell performes “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Both Sides Now” on BBC television in 1969 and The Byrds sing the Carole King song “Goin’ Back” in 1967. Finally, we hear the The Youngbloods’ “Get Together” and “Sunlight” and then the show ends with “Yesterday” by Paul McCartney, from 1965.
2 - Dust in the Wind (1 hour)
This show presents live performances of some of the great popular-music bands and singers of the later decades of 20th-century America, England, France, Ireland and Norway.
From England, the great spiritual rock group, The Moody Blues, open with the song “Question”, first released in 1970. Also, from England emerged the group Mike & The Mechanics, here performing their 1985 song “Silent Running”. The group Take That sing the great 1995 pop song “Back for Good” written by lead singer Gary Barlow. From America, we present two songs. First, the band called Mr. Mister joins with Ringo Starr to perform the band’s hit song “Broken Wings” from 1985. Then, from the state of the same name, the group known as Kansas perform their great song from 1977 called “Dust in the Wind”, written by band member Kerry Livgren.
Back to England for four songs, we begin with another 1977 song, “Mr. Blue Sky” by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), written and produced by front man Jeff Lynne. Following is “Orinoco Flow” that was composed by Irish singer and musician Enya, here performed by the young English vocal group Libera. The great Phil Collins joins us now with “Take Me home”, the last song from a performance filmed in Paris in 2004. English singer James Blunt then performs “I’ll Carry You Home” at the big 2008 Bastille Day concert on the Champ de Mars in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Now, from Belgium, the great singer Lara Fabian performs her English-language song “Broken Vow”. David Gray, from England, performs “Babylon” in Zermatt, Switzerland. Finally, the great song “You Raise Me Up” is performed by the Norwegian band called Secret Garden. The music was written by Secret Garden’s Rolf Løvland and the lyrics by Brendan Graham. The performance by Secret Garden features singers Espen Grjotheim and Tracey Campbell and was filmed in Shanghai.
3 - 21st-Century Acoustic Pop Music (1 hour)
A new acoustic-based music emerged early in this century initiated by the English group Mumford & Sons, who had been inspired when they saw the film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, released in the year 2000. The group here performs “I Will Wait” in a 2013 concert.
Another group called Blind Pilot, based in Portland, Oregon, performs “Half Moon”, also in 2013. Dry the River was a London-based group, and they are here represented by “History Book” from 2010. Colorado’s Elephant Revival calls their music transcendental folk music and are here represented with “Remembering a Beginning” from 2011. Seattle’s Fleet Foxes enjoyed moderate success in the United States but were better received in Europe, selling over 200,000 copies of their music in just five months. Here they perform “Grown Ocean” on the Dave Letterman television show in 2011. Bon Iver, from Wisconsin, perform “Hinnom, TX” from 2011.
Sweden’s young sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg call themselves First Aid Kit and were, like Mumford & Sons, also inspired by the film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. They perform their song “Emmylou” in 2015. The duo called The Civil Wars were from Nashville and perform “Tip of my Tongue” around 2011. The group called Of Monsters and Men are from Iceland, of all places. They perform their popular “Little Talks” around the year 2011. Ryan Adams is from North Carolina. He performs the song “New York, New York” in 2011. Brandi Carlile from Seattle sings “Helplessly Helping” (a Crosby, Stills and Nash song) in 2012.
The Lumineers, from Denver, Colorado, sing their song “Ho Hey” in 2013. It reached number one for 18 non-consecutive weeks on the Billboard Rock Songs Chart and charted well on other charts as well. The Minneapolis, Minnesota, group ominously named Dark Dark Dark sing “In Your Dreams” in 2010. The lead singer plays an accordion. The Staves (sisters Emily, Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor) are from Watford, England. They perform “Wisely and Slow” in 2012. The show winds up with a masterpiece 2011 video by the Canadian group Hey Rosetta!. The song is called “Bandages”.