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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
 Posted - 15/02/2012 : 20:04:53
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Dory Previn, Songwriter, Is Dead at 86
By BRUCE WEBER--NY Times
Mythical Kings & Iguanas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVy5hAZ8Pdw
Dory Previn, the lyricist for three Oscar-nominated songs who as a composer and performer mined her difficult childhood, bouts of mental illness and a very public divorce to create a potent and influential personal songbook, died on Tuesday at her home in Southfield, Mass. She was 86.
Her death was confirmed by her husband, Joby Baker.
Ms. Previn rose to prominence as a singer-songwriter with a substantial cult following in the early 1970s and she enriched a period in pop music history that also saw the emergence of Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Laura Nyro.
She never became as widely known as they were (though she did record a live double album at Carnegie Hall), partly because her voice was never as big as theirs, but also because her lyrics — frank and dark, even when tinged with humor, and often wincingly confessional — were not the stuff of pop radio. They were, however, clear antecedents of the work of later balladeers like Sinead O’Connor and Suzanne Vega.
In “With My Daddy in the Attic,” Ms. Previn wrote of her complicated relationship with her disturbed father. In “Esther’s First Communion,” she wrote about a girl’s indoctrination into religious ritual and her revulsion at it. In “Yada Yada La Scala,” she wrote about women in a mental hospital. In “Lemon Haired Ladies,” she wrote about an older woman pining for a younger man:
Whatever you give me
I’ll take as it comes
Discarding self-pity
I’ll manage with crumbs.
Unusually for a pop singer of the day, Ms. Previn’s background was in neither folk nor rock. Her early success came in Hollywood, writing songs for the movies, generally as a lyricist working with her husband, André Previn, who later earned fame as a classical composer and conductor.
Together they were nominated for two Academy Awards: in 1960 for “Faraway Part of Town,” from “Pepe,” and in 1962 for “Second Chance,” from “Two for the Seesaw.” But their best-known collaboration was the theme from the 1967 film version of Jacqueline Susann’s drug-soaked show-business novel “Valley of the Dolls” (later recorded by Dionne Warwick), which begins:
Gotta get off, gonna get
Have to get off from this ride
Gotta get hold, gonna get
Need to get hold of my pride.
The halting, almost stammering progression of laments, Ms. Previn later said, came from her own experience of relying on pills.
In 1969, working with the composer Fred Karlin, Ms. Previn earned a third Oscar nomination, for “Come Saturday Morning” from “The Sterile Cuckoo,” which became a hit for the Sandpipers.
By then, however, the Previn marriage was in a shambles. Mr. Previn had begun an affair with the actress Mia Farrow, then in her early 20s, whom he later married, and Ms. Previn, who had a history of emotional fragility and mental illness, fell apart. Fearful of traveling in general and of flying in particular, she had a breakdown on an airplane that was waiting to take off, shouted unintelligibly and tore at her clothes, and spent several months in a psychiatric hospital.
The episode, as awful as it was, proved to be a turning point in her life and career.
Her first album afterward, “On My Way to Where” (1970) — the title was a reference to the airplane debacle — included perhaps her most famous song, “Beware of Young Girls,” about Ms. Farrow, and received polarized reviews. On her second, “Mythical Kings and Iguanas” (1971), many critics noticed a growing vocal confidence. Her third, “Reflections in a Mud Puddle/Taps Tremors and Time Steps” (1971), included a pained report of and reflection on her father’s death, and drew praise from the New York Times music critic Don Heckman.
“Ms. Previn is no great singer, her guitar playing is only adequate, and her melodies sometimes have an uncomfortable tendency to move in too-familiar directions,” he wrote. “But her message is stated so brilliantly in her lyrics, and the tales she has to tell are so important, that they make occasional musical inadequacies fade away.”
Dorothy Veronica Langan was born in New Jersey — sources differ on the town, Rahway or Woodbridge — on Oct. 22, 1925, and she grew up in Woodbridge. Her father, Michael, was a laborer and a frustrated musician who pushed her toward music and dance. He had also been deranged, Ms. Previn wrote in a 1976 memoir, by his service in World War I. He had been gassed, she wrote, and he was convinced the gassing had made him sterile; therefore she could not be his daughter. For a while he locked himself in the attic.
Ms. Previn left home as a teenager and worked in summer stock and in commercials and sang in small clubs, writing new verses to popular songs. Her work came to the attention of Arthur Freed, the producer of MGM movie musicals like “An American in Paris” and “Singin’ in the Rain,” who hired her for MGM, where she met Mr. Previn. They married in 1959. She had been married and divorced previously.
In addition to her husband, Mr. Baker, a painter whom she met in the 1970s and married in 1984, she is survived by three stepchildren, Michelle Wayland, Fredricka Baker and Scott Zimmerman, and six step-grandchildren.
In the 1980s, Ms. Previn and Mr. Previn reconciled as friends, and she came to loathe the fact that she was best known for their breakup. But the pain and grief were the foundation of her art. In the hospital after her breakdown, she was encouraged to write down her feelings, and they emerged as poems.
“I was always afraid to write music,” she said in 1970. “I wouldn’t have presumed to with a musician like André around the house. But I play a little guitar. So I started working them out on the guitar, thinking I could interest some singer in recording them and that’s how all these songs were born.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 14, 2012
An earlier version of this article referred to “On the Way to Where” (1970) as Ms. Previn’s first album, but in the 1950s she recorded the album “The Leprechauns Are Upon Me” under the name Dory Langdon. That version of the article also referred incorrectly to the 1970 album’s title; it is “On My Way to Where.”
Mary C Brown & The Hollywood Sign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5orWydsNts&feature=fvwrel
Scared To Be Alone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYZFauAoQ0g
________________________________________________
We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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Edited by - lemonade kid on 15/02/2012 20:28:04 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 15/02/2012 : 20:07:51
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Dory Previn - Mythical Kings & Iguanas (1971)
Going Home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL0g0Ef4iKY
Mythical Kings and Iguanas is Previn's most consistent and accessible album, one on which the confessional tone of On My Way to Where is more tempered by craft. Like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, the singer is concerned with intimate relations on such songs as "Yada Yada La Scala," "The Lady with the Braid," "Angels and Devils the Following Day," and "Lemon Haired Ladies," adopting the persona of a needy older woman contending with a young, heedless companion. But she also finds space for "Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign," a commentary on her adopted hometown, and "Stone for Bessie Smith," which reflects on the then recent death of Janis Joplin.
Track Listings
01. Mythical Kings and Iguanas
02. Yada Yada la Scala
03. Lady With the Braid
04. Her Mother's Daughter
05. Angels and Devils the Following Day
06. Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign
07. Lemon Haired Ladies
08. Stone for Bessie Smith
09. Game
10. Going Home
In the early 1970s (probably 1971) I first heard a song by Dory Previn entitled "Mr. Whisper" played by D.J. Allison Steele on WNEW fm in New York City. I called the station and Allison Steele, who was known as the "Nightbird" (she had a late night show) answered. No, it was not a producer or engineer, but Allison herself who picked up the phone. Anyway, I asked her who that was I had just heard and she said "Dory Previn." I immediately went out and bought two of her albums. I was, and still am, mesmorized by the Mythical Kings album. Incidentally "Mr. Whisper," a great song, is not on this album and as much as I like that song, I nontheless believe that this album is her best.
Dory's lyrics can be piercing. The song "Lady With the Braid" gives me chills when her gentle, almost cozy invitation to spend the night suddenly and stunningly implores "Do you care to stay til sunrise? It's completely your decision. It's just the night cuts through me like a knife, like a knife. Do you care to stay a while and save my life?" Let me tell you: those lyrics cut through ME like a knife!!! Similarly the tragic song of an old maid, "Her Mother's Daughter," becomes so intense, I almost can't listen at times (and I'm a happily married guy who, presumably, should not be able to relate to the song).
The title song is about keeping firmly grounded in reality and not seeking mystical escapes. Rather than seek mythical kings, we should look to the earth where iguanas live. The final song on the cd reprises the song "Mythical Kings" and then moves on to a repetitive refrain from "Lady With the Braid." The repetitive, chorus like lyrics, "going home is such a ride, going home is such a ride. Isn't going home a low and lonely ride," make for an almost sing along around the campfire ambience.
When I was in college, a good three decades ago, I turned my friends on to Dory and they too were fascinated by her lyrics. Dory had previously suffered a nervous breakdown and was twice hospitalized. Furthermore, she suffered the breakup of her marriage to Andre Previn who cheated on her in an affair with Mia Farrow (who became pregnant). Some of her dark, and ironic lyrics are quite likely reflective of her experiences. But, she also has uplifting songs too, e.g, "Yada Yada Scala." She never sold many albums, her best seller was perhaps 50,000 copies, but those of us in this group of 50,000 were true blue, hard core fans of this great musical and lyrical genius. Mythical Kings is truly a work that will never grow old.
Amazon Customer Comment
Review by Charles Donovan
A year on from her debut, Previn's cupboard was still bursting with demons. This time out, though, she put her childhood anxieties on hold and dealt with more immediate concerns -- the quest for spiritual fulfillment and the simple need to find a healthy, loving relationship -- in a series of mostly dark, experimental folk ballads. The record bore a more muted sound than its predecessor, but lyrically it was as incisive as ever. With beguiling candor, Previn neatly pinned down the inevitable inequalities of an affair with a younger man ("Whatever you give me/I'll take as it comes/Discarding self-pity/I'll manage with crumbs") on "Lemon Haired Ladies." "Angels and Devils the Following Day" remains a great modern-day fable about psychological abuse versus physical abuse -- wisely concluding that a few punches are nothing compared to chronic mental torture. Mythical Kings and Iguanas also contained "Lady with the Braid," the closest Previn came to an adult radio hit.
Biography by William Ruhlmann
Dory Previn was a successful lyricist for motion picture theme songs during the 1960s and early 1970s, earning three Academy Award nominations for best song; in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, she published books of memoirs and wrote and performed in musical theater works. But she remains best known for the six albums of original songs and one live album she released in a confessional, singer-songwriter style between 1970 and 1976.
Previn was born on October 22. Different sources list the year of her birth as early as 1925, though 1929 seems most probable. She was deeply influenced by her father, who was mentally disturbed due to his experience in World War I, and she had a difficult childhood. She began to perform in her teens and after high school attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for a year. Thereafter, she was worked as an actress and a dancer, until she began writing song lyrics, which landed her a job at MGM where she wrote under the name Dory Langdon. She was assigned to collaborate with composer André Previn, with whom she became romantically involved. In May 1957, she recorded an album of her songs, The Leprechauns Are Upon Me, with Previn and Kenny Burrell accompanying her, for Verve Records. She and Previn married on November 7, 1959.
In 1960, continuing to use the name Dory Langdon, she began to get frequent assignments to write lyrics for songs used in motion pictures, usually in collaboration with her husband. That year, the Previn-Langdon song "The Faraway Part Of Town," sung in the film Pepe by Judy Garland, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. The Previns' "A Second Chance" from the 1962 film Two For The Seesaw earned them another nomination. They also wrote independent songs, and during the early 1960s they had cuts on albums by Doris Day, Eileen Farrell, and Jack Jones, while their film songs were recorded by such performers as Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Eddie Fisher. In 1964, Dory Previn collaborated with Harold Arlen on "So Long, Big Time!," which was recorded by Tony Bennett for his album The Many Moods Of Tony. In 1965, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized briefly. Nevertheless, she continued to write with her husband, and began to use the name Dory Previn professionally for the first time. Frank Sinatra recorded their song "You're Gonna Hear From Me," from the 1965 film Inside Daisy Clover, on his 1966 That's Life album. The Previns' last creative work together was some of their most popular: In 1967, they wrote five songs for Valley Of The Dolls. The Valley Of The Dolls soundtrack album spent six months in the charts, and Dionne Warwick scored a Top Ten hit with her recording of the theme song, while her own Valley Of The Dolls LP went gold.
In the late 1960s, André Previn made a transition from composing music for films to conducting orchestras worldwide, while living abroad. He took up with 24-year-old actress Mia Farrow, and when it became known that she was pregnant by him, he and Dory Previn separated in the spring of 1969. Their divorce became final in July 1970, and he married Farrow. Dory Previn expressed her outrage in the song "Beware Of Young Girls."
Buffeted by the dissolution of her marriage, Previn, after being institutionalized again, returned to writing for films in an increasingly introspective style typified by both "(Theme From) Valley Of The Dolls" and her next major film song, "Come Saturday Morning" (music by Fred Karlin) from The Sterile Cuckoo (1969). The Sandpipers, who sang the song in the film, recorded it for a Top 40 hit, and it earned Previn her third Oscar nomination.
She signed with the new Mediarts company founded by former Capitol Records executive Alan Livingston and producer Nik Venet. The result was Mediarts Records' first release and her first album in 13 years, On My Way To Where (July 1970), which sold 25,000 copies. The album's lyrics were published in book form in 1971. Previn sold more than 50,000 copies of her second album, Mythical Kings And Iguanas, released in 1971. Mediarts was then sold to United Artists Records, which reissued her first two albums and released her third, Reflections In A Mud Puddle/Taps Tremors And Time Steps, later in 1971. In 1972 came Mary C. Brown And The Hollywood Sign, a thematic album about Hollywood misfits whose songs were intended for a musical revue that ran briefly in Los Angeles in November 1972. Meanwhile, Previn's screenplay, Third Girl From The Left, was filmed and broadcast as a TV movie on ABC on March 10, 1973; she also wrote the title song and sang it in the film.
Previn, who refused to fly, rarely performed live, which tended to limit her commercial success (though four of her albums just missed charting among the top 200 bestsellers). But she did do a few shows, and on April 18, 1973, she performed a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York that was recorded and released later that year as a double LP, Live At Carnegie Hall. She then switched to Warner Bros. Records and released Dory Previn in 1974, followed by We're Children Of Coincidence And Harpo Marx in 1976. That year, she published her first autobiography, Midnight Baby. It was followed by a second volume, Bog-Trotter, in 1980. Also in 1980, she performed in a musical revue of her songs, Children Of Coincidence, in Dublin. The show was filmed and broadcast on Irish television under the title Hunky Dory.
Previn was not much heard from after the start of the 1980s, though she performed in London as late as 1986 and wrote a stage work, The Flight Of The Gooney Bird. In the late 1990s, her publishing came under the aegis of Williamson Music, the publishing arm of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, which published The Dory Previn Songbook, featuring illustrations by her husband, Joby Baker. Meanwhile, BGO Records in England licensed and reissued her United Artists albums on CD.
________________________________________________
We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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Edited by - lemonade kid on 15/02/2012 20:08:46 |
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Dory Previn, 70's Singer,Songwriter, Dead at 86
