Billy Eckstine

[Rabshakeh]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations!

[JSngry]

12 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

When Eckstine's vibrato got REAL wide in later years I couldn't take it.

Didn't bother me. It seemed a function of aging. The depth of the voice was still there, as was the  pitch and the timing. 

[Larry Kart]

Just now, JSngry said:

Didn't bother me. It seemed a function of aging. The depth of the voice was still there, as was the  pitch and the timing. 

Sure, it's a function of aging, but at worst it's an outright wobble, like a warped LP. Makes me feel seasick.  

[JSngry]

Guess I got my sealegs.

Besides...

Who is next on the list to be erased, Arthur Prysock? 

[Larry Kart]

11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Guess I got my sealegs.

Besides...

Who is next on the list to be erased, Arthur Prysock? 

Don't recall that Prysock's wobble was as extreme as that of the latter-day Mr. B. The former IIRC had a basically richer, deeper voice, which covered up some of the problem, if problem there was, while Eckstine's lower register tended to be of the head, not of the chest, and and thus a bit "white," if you will, which accentuated the wobble.  Eckstine is trying to control it nicely on your second example and does a good job off it. The first doesn't count that much because the problem tends to crop up on long tones only. What is the vintage of example #2?

[JSngry]

1972:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Soul

[Late]

It was Eckstine, incidentally, who nicknamed Gene Ammons "Jug"—a shortened form of "Jughead." Eckstine had ordered straw hats for the band to wear during performance, but Ammons' hat didn't fit him.

Now, I don't know if that story's apocryphal or not, but I've read it in more than one place. But maybe Eckstine just had a small head?

[JSngry]

 

[Larry Kart]

He's trying to control it with reasonable success, but to some degree I hear the effort of him trying. Better that than not trying, but it ain't Johnny Hartman, if that's a fair comparison (and I admit that the  overall aura of. those two men is different -- with Hartman being more the at-one-remove interpreter and Mr. B. being right  "there." OTOH, you can only go with what you got.

[Teasing the Korean]

15 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

When Eckstine's vibrato got REAL wide in later years I couldn't take it.

Yeah, that's a stumbling block for me with a lot of singers.  

I have read that, with aging singers, this is the result of calcium deposits on vocal chords, and that there are now therapies to remove the calcium and eliminate the wobble.

[JSngry]

hmmm... I just hear him singing the songs. And singing them quite well.

a more salient point is how both Motown and Stax probably had an idea of breaking him into the "adult contemporary" market of the day like so SO many White artists of his generation - and failing. That's a complicated issue, because the labels themselves no doubt were as unfamiliar to that network as the network was with them. But it also raises the point - why did no other labels want to do with Eckstine what they were doing with all the White artists they were promoting? Did Eckstine want to work with black-owned and/or operated labels? Or did they have no interest in bringing him into their fold? Or maybe both?

It's obvious to me that given a decent song (which was far from always on both the Motown & Enterprise offerings) and appropriate arrangements/productions (ditto), he was more than capable of delivering a spry and WONDERFULLY executed pop record that would have easily fit in on the same stations that were playing contemporary Sinatra and Andy Williams and Jack Jones and all that ilk of excellent singers making records for their contemporary marketplace. Maybe the R&B elements were a few years early for that audience? But maybe not? How would you know if you don't get it there for an airing? Programming Directors? A lack of mutual contacts? God knows, the possibilities are more than a few...

When considering Billy Eckstine's ongoing erasure, it's not enough to end the story with his last Mercury record. No. He made SIX records LPs after that - three for Motown, three for Stax/Enterprise. The voice never deteriorated, it was always there. With the right promotion, he could have stayed visible/viable, as did Arthur Prysock. Hell, my dad constantly listened to an AM station that aggressively worked that format, so I know what that market was into. You give them a once-in-a-while thing like that "Living Like A Gypsy", it would fit right in, on the "groovy" end of their programming.

But it seems like Billy Eckstine just got forgot. How can that happen? I'm sure the answers are many, but are "we today" being complicit? The model today seems to be for one person to do the homework, step up and just fucking OWN the publicizing of the legacy, like Ricci Riccardi is doing with Armstrong, and like Stanley Dance did with Ellington. Become the "official" voice of the product/artist in these wonderfully modern times of ours. Who's going to do that for/with Billy Eckstine? Probably not his biographer, because from what I've read of it, he has a total misunderstanding about what his last records were trying to achieve, and is outright scornful of his last record (the one with Benny Carter, which I find to be nothing but awesome, one of the great Old Guy On Their VERY Last Legs records).

This should not be happening.

KOCA (1240 AM, Kilgore)  would have definitely played this, except for...what?

17 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Wasn't (at least some of) that "backlash" in response to a photo in Life (or some other, similar nationwide magazine) in which a (white) woman is shown affectionately touching Eckstine on the arm? No kissing. Just a bit of eyes and touching his sleeved arm.

 

[JSngry]

[Jim Duckworth]

18 hours ago, medjuck said:

David Hajdu has an essay in which he suggests that Eckstine was sort of black-listed  because of his attractiveness to to  young white girls.  I like Hajdu but he's not one to let nuance get in the way of a good story.  

 

 

While I am not qualified in any way to discuss the veracity of this statement, I do have a frivolous anecdotal observation.  My mother, born in 1920, never seemed to care for Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, but really loved Mr. B.  I had the pleasure of taking her to see Mr. B with Count Basie when I was a sprout, and his was the only music that she would request by name.

[Larry Kart]

I, for one, am not trying to "erase" anyone, and I resent the  kind of "1619 Project" use of the term. For me it's just a matter of the vocal artist at hand and how or her or she handles the  vicissitudes of the aging process. For example, I've rarely been bothered by Billie Holiday's vocal problems because the wholeness of Holiday's artistic/dramatic  persona leaves room for them, so to speak -- they're like the changing colors of a tree leaf in autumn.  Mr. B, by comparison, strikes me as essentially a romantic crooner, and while there's nothing wrong in my book about that profile per se, when the croon develops a wobble, there is.

[JSngry]

1 minute ago, Larry Kart said:

I, for one, am not trying to "erase" anyone, and I resent the  kind of "1619 Project" use of the term. 

 

Whoa, dude. Nothing being aimed at you. 

However, erasure does occur, and it doesn't take a "1619 Project" to be aware of it.

Find another word if you like, fine with me. 

[Rabshakeh]

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Whoa, dude. Nothing being aimed at you. 

However, erasure does occur, and it doesn't take a "1619 Project" to be aware of it.

Find another word if you like, fine with me. 

 

16 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

I, for one, am not trying to "erase" anyone, and I resent the  kind of "1619 Project" use of the term. For me it's just a matter of the vocal artist at hand and how or her or she handles the  vicissitudes of the aging process. For example, I've rarely been bothered by Billie Holiday's vocal problems because the wholeness of Holiday's artistic/dramatic  persona leaves room for them, so to speak -- they're like the changing colors of a tree leaf in autumn.  Mr. B, by comparison, strikes me as essentially a romantic crooner, and while there's nothing wrong in my book about that profile per se, when the croon develops a wobble, there is.

A lot of people out there just get forgotten. 

That includes a lot of the greats. You have to be in the corner of the genre that is attractive to the younger audience rediscovering it. If you aren't, won't be. 

That's true of Eckstine, but also of 90% of the 'big band pop' singers of that era. 

[JSngry]

If this is romantic crooning, give me all there is 

2 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

A lot of people out there just get forgotten. 

And sometimes they have done nothing to deserve otherwise. 

[JSngry]

31 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

You have to be in the corner of the genre that is attractive to the younger audience rediscovering it. If you aren't, won't be.

Questlove, are you listening?

I also find it telling that the by-now antiquated Jazz at Lincoln Center has more or less ignored male vocalists that do not have some sort of overt "blues" image. But not TOO blues. 

Oh, Willie Nelson. Sorry. I forgot.

There's something weird about the way that "jazz" overall processes deeper-voiced male vocals. Joe Williams being the exception that more or less proves the rule. And Joe Williams didn't always go low...

R&B once had a place for the deep voice, but no more (please prove me wrong!). Like everything else, the bottom is either exaggerated and distorted or else it ain't there at all.

Something very weird going on. What is going on with our natural depth, deepness. Everything is going upupupupup 

SNAP!!!! 

 

 

[Larry Kart]

Jim: The voice is beautifully knit together on "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," but then on this song at that pace, it needs to be.  Indeed, there are a number of points, beginning with his initial "They," when the sheer intensity of Eckstine's timbre is at once noble, overwhelming, and sensual as all get out. But a good deal of taut force is being exerted by him  -- this is not particularly easeful singing, nor in emotional/dramatic terms should it be -- and when with time things begin to loosen up in the vocal apparatus, there's little room in the overall conception for stepping back/dialing down. 

[JSngry]

Overwhelming? You mean, like, intimidating? To who? Or more, like, wow, things will never be the same after this! 

His pitch never faltered. His time never wavered. The vibrato was always in tune, no matter how wide it became. 

That's more than can be said about pretty much everybody.if the lived long enough. Even some/most "legends".

All this noise about Great Interpreters Of The Great American Songbook is just that -noise - unless Billy Eckstine is given equal and serious  consideration. 

[Larry Kart]

"Overwhelming" as in really intense in its musical and emotional impact. Stop trying to paint me as saying things I didn't and wouldn't say. "Intimidating"? Where have I ever implied anything like that? Geez -- I said "noble." Noble and intimidating? Maybe El Cid.

 

[medjuck]

What's the record with Benny Carter called?  I want that. 

[JSngry]

15 minutes ago, medjuck said:

What's the record with Benny Carter called?  I want that. 

https://www.discogs.com/release/9592184-Billy-Eckstine-Benny-Carter-Helen-Merrill-Billy-Eckstine-Sings-With-Benny-Carter

Apparently it's "wobbly" or some such, I guess. I don't hear it, it just sounds like an old guy with flawless pitch and time singing a song really well.

[mikeweil]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

 

He's so damn attractive -  and so unsurpassable on that track with Basie.

Maybe he was just too good a singer with not enough dirty bluesiness in his voice for the Stax and Motown stuff. He sings really well, but that's not his genre.

25 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Apparently it's "wobbly" or some such, I guess. I don't hear it, it just sounds like an old guy with flawless pitch and time singing a song really well.

That's simply what it is. I have that CD. I only new his 1940's stuff before that, but once I got over the superficial aspects, my admiration grew.

Edited February 20, 2023 by mikeweil

[Rabshakeh]

9 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Maybe he was just too good a singer with not enough dirty bluesiness in his voice for the Stax and Motown stuff. He sings really well, but that's not his genre.

I read somewhere that he actually hated singing Blues.