Fascinatin' Rhythm Listings
2005 Programs:
Archived 2005: |January | February | March | April | May | June |
July | August | September | October | November | December
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004
January 2005
PROGRAM: 0501
UPLINK: January 6, 2005
EARLY BALLADS: The romantic ballad as we came to know it in the 1930s-1940s, first emerged in the years before World War II. The songs were sweet, lilting, innocent, and optimistic, but also occasionally deepened with melancholy.
PROGRAM: 0502
UPLINK: January 13, 2005
FORGOTTEN BLACK SONGWRITERS: Everybody recognizes Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, but what about Maceo Pinkard, Spencer Williams, Shelton Brooks, and the dozens upon dozens of forgotten black songwriters who enriched our popular music.
PROGRAM: 0503
UPLINK: January 20, 2005
I WENT TO A MARVELOUS PARTY: Popular songs are generally upbeat and optimistic. They revel in good times. So parties are a suitable setting for the celebration.
PROGRAM: 0504
UPLINK: January 27, 2005
BING CROSBY SETS SAIL FOR HAWAII: In the 1930s and 1940s, when songs about tropical paradises were all the rage, Bing Crosby recorded more than 40 songs that borrowed the sounds and images of Polynesian music.
PROGRAM: 0505
UPLINK: February 3, 2005
FLIRTING AND TEASING: Before love got so somber and serious in the 1930s and thereafter, it could be fun. Before you fell, you flirted; before you tumbled, you teased.
PROGRAM: 0506
UPLINK: February 10, 2005
I LOVE YOU: It's the cliche such lyricists as Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg tried never to use, but others like Cole Porter and Oscar Hammerstein used it to begin songs of unusual ardor. For Valentine's Day.
PROGRAM: 0507
UPLINK: February 17, 2005
THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE: Because each song is so brief, each makes only one small point along love's long line, you can tell a story by linking songs together. For where Valentine's Day might lead.
PROGRAM: 0508
UPLINK: February 24, 2005
LORENZ HART: A lot of songs before 1960 weren't personal; they weren't about the songwriter's own emotions. But none of the songwriters from those years was more personal than Lorenz Hart.
PROGRAM: 0509
UPLINK: March 3, 2005
COLE PORTER'S NEW YORK: No songwriter wrote more affectionately or ironically about New York City. He loved it and he praised it, but he was hardly blind to its flaws.
PROGRAM: 0510
UPLINK: March 10, 2005
IRISH PLACES: The romance of Ireland in the American imagination is inseparable from the music of its language, the allure of its place names.
PROGRAM: 0511
UPLINK: March 17, 2005
THE GERSHWINS IN HOLLYWOOD: They had to drag George kicking and screaming to Hollywood. He couldn't wait to get back to New York. But in those last few years of his life, he and Ira wrote some of their greatest songs together.
PROGRAM: 0512
UPLINK: March 24, 2005
GO VISIT YOUR GRANDPARENTS: Songs for the third generation offer unconditional love with affection or amusement.
PROGRAM: 0513
UPLINK: March 31, 2005
THE LAND OF BEGINNING AGAIN: Songs about places we know, remember, and dream about – some of them real.
PROGRAM 0514
UPLINK April 7,2005
TELEPHONE SONGS: Machines kept changing the way people talked (and sang) about love. No machine was more important than the telephone.
PROGRAM 0515
UPLINK April 14, 2005
APPLES AND PEACHES: There aren't many songs about vegetables but there are plenty about fruits, sweet and juicy – just like love!
PROGRAM 0516
UPLINK April 21, 2005
THE OPPOSITE SEX: Attitudes, attributes, and assumptions – and maybe even a stereotype or two thrown in for good measure.
PROGRAM 0517
UPLINK April 28, 2005
THE MORNING AFTER: It all depends on what the night before was like. Everything from torch ballads to whistling your way to work.
PROGRAM 0517
UPLINK April 28, 2005
THE MORNING AFTER: It all depends on what the night before was like. Everything from torch ballads to whistling your way to work.
PROGRAM 0518
UPLINK May 5, 2005
FOR MOTHER'S DAY: Sentimental songs for the one we feel most sentimental about.
PROGRAM 0519
UPLINK May 12, 2005
NECESSITY: Love, at least in songs, isn't something we'd like to have; it's something we need.
PROGRAM 0520
UPLINK May 19, 2005
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS: Using our songs to commemorate Memorial Day by celebrating the men and women in the service.
PROGRAM 0521
UPLINK May 26, 2005
ALBERT VON TILZER: The lesser-known of the songwriting Von Tilzer brothers wrote his full share of hits, including "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
PROGRAM 0522
UPLINK June 2, 2005
I WANT TO BE A POPULAR MILLIONAIRE: It's okay to be a ritzy in a popular song as long as you don't put on airs. Think Fred Astaire.
PROGRAM 0523
UPLINK June 9, 2005
BIG BOY: For Father's Day, some of the things a grown-up man can be, from boyish to wise.
PROGRAM 0524
UPLINK June 16, 2005
AMERICAN ANTHEMS: Anthems for America, some of them patriotic and a lot of them by Irving Berlin.
PROGRAM 0525
UPLINK June 23, 2005
THE REAL AMERICAN FOLKSONG: Songs show us what was happening in America when ragtime was all the rage.
PROGRAM 0526
UPLINK June 30, 2005
HIP HIP HURRAH: Throw your hats in the air and give three musical cheers for the red, white, and blue.
July 2005
PROGRAM 0527
UPLINK July 7, 2005
BACKSTAGE – Theater people intrigue us, everyone from the star to the star’s mother. Their backstage stories are the stuff of “frontstage” songs.
PROGRAM 0528
UPLINK July 14, 2005
THE GYPSIES – Exotic and mysterious, the stuff of legends, gypsies play a role in some of our most romantic songs.
PROGRAM 0529
UPLINK July 21, 2005
TOO MANY RINGS AROUND ROSIE -- Rose is a rose is a rose is a... popular song. There’s Second-Hand Rose, Sweet Rosie O’Grady, My Blushin’ Rosie, Rose of Washington Square, and many, many more.
PROGRAM 0530
UPLINK July 28, 2005
NEWSPAPERS – Everything from the latest news to the latest gossip, from fashion to the funnies, set to the rhythm of a popular song.
UPLINK July 28, 2005
NEWSPAPERS – Everything from the latest news to the latest gossip, from fashion to the funnies, set to the rhythm of a popular song.
PROGRAM 0531
UPLINK August 4, 2005
BACK TO THE
PROGRAM 0532
UPLINK August 11, 2005
THE ALLEYMEN – A handful of unknown songwriters who wrote songs we still can’t get out of our heads.
PROGRAM 0533
UPLINK August 18, 2005
SCHOOL OPENS – And everybody’s back, singing their way to something that resembles an education – in books, as well as in love.
PROGRAM 0534
UPLINK August 25, 2005
BACK TO WORK – Songs about working at a job – and at romance.
PROGRAM 0535
UPLINK September 1, 2005
WORKING STIFFS – Labor Day songs for the people the holiday is supposed to be about, and also the work they do.
PROGRAM 0536
UPLINK September 8, 2005
DEPRESSION – Losing a job can get you down, and these songs follow the mood where it takes you.
PROGRAM 0537
UPLINK September 15, 2005
HARRY WOODS – Sure you never heard of him, but you can’t fit all his important songs in a single hour – starting with “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” and “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain.”
PROGRAM 0538
UPLINK September 22, 2005
BECOMING AMERICAN ONSTAGE – They changed their names, they sang about immigrants who were becoming American, and they convinced their audiences it was a new and better America.
PROGRAM 0539
UPLINK September 9, 2005
BIOGRAPHIES IN SONG – Songs that use everybody from Columbus and Elizabeth I to Tarzan, Romeo, and Jack and Jill.
PROGRAM: 0540
UPLINK: October 6, 2005
LYRICS BY LEO ROBIN – Songs by lyricist Leo Robin for Hollywood and Broadway.
PROGRAM: 0541
UPLINK: October 13, 2005
WHY WE SING – Because we like to, because we have to. All somebody has to do is sit down at a piano and invite us to join in.
PROGRAM: 0542
UPLINK: October 20, 2005
THE MILLS BROTHERS & THE INK SPOTS – Jazzy and smooth, mellow and stylish, the two major male vocal groups of the 1930s and 1940s.
PROGRAM: 0543
UPLINK: October 27, 2005
BOBBY SHORT REMEMBERED – For the first of four shows celebrating Fascinatin’ Rhythm’s 25th year, a celebration of Bobby Short, who died earlier this year.
PROGRAM: 0544
UPLINK: November 3, 2005
JEROME KERN TURNS 120 – Celebration #2 for Fascinatin’ Rhythm commemorates the 120th birthday of Jerome Kern, American music’s greatest creator of melody.
PROGRAM: 0545
UPLINK: November 10, 2005 (Rpt 0347)
SIMPLE PLEASURES – A blaze in the fireplace, a blooming garden, a simple melody, the simple pleasures that are supposed to be the most pleasing.
PROGRAM: 0546
UPLINK: November 17, 2005
HAROLD ARLEN AND THE WEATHER – This is composer Harold Arlen’s 100th year. The FR celebration continues with his songs about the weather.
PROGRAM: 0547
UPLINK: November 24, 2005
DOROTHY FIELDS AT 100 – We conclude the FR 25th anniversary celebration with the songs of our greatest female lyricists. Regardless of gender, she was one of our very best songwriters.
PROGRAM: 0548
UPLINK: December 1, 2005
BLACK AND WHITE – Opposites attract, especially when “she’s that black and white baby of mine.”
PROGRAM: 0549
UPLINK: December 8, 2005
MR. JAZZ HIMSELF – First ragtime songs were about ragtime. Then Jazz Age songs got it into their heads to sing about jazz.
PROGRAM: 0550
UPLINK: December 15, 2005
BEFORE I MET YOU – It’s hard to imagine what it was like before we fell in love.
PROGRAM: 0551 (Rpt 0351)
UPLINK: December 22, 2005
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS – The songs are as much about home as they are about the season. The linkage is essential, of the essence.
PROGRAM: 0552
UPLINK: December 29, 2005
DAYS OF THE WEEK – Songs about the passing of time and about love, when time seems to stop its passing