From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2012 #199 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe:mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Website:http://jonimitchell.com JMDL Digest Wednesday, February 15 2012 Volume 2012 : Number 199 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- RIP Dory Previn - vljc [Catherine McKay ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:48:17 -0800 (PST) From: Catherine McKay Subject: RIP Dory Previn - vljc I'm not sure if Azeem is still on this list, but I noticed his posting on Facebook last night that Dory Previn had died. I've always loved her dark, confessional and often very funny songs.B Here's a good bio from the New York Times. There is a Joni mention near the top. - --------------------------------------------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/arts/music/dory-previn-songwriter-is-dead-a t-86.html Dory Previn, Songwriter, Is Dead at 86 By BRUCE WEBER Published: February 14, 2012 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 b frank and dark, even when tinged with humor, and often wincingly confessional b were not the stuff of pop radio. They were, however, clear antecedents of the work of later balladeers like Sinead ObConnor and Suzanne Vega. In bWith My Daddy in the Attic,b Ms. Previn wrote of her complicated relationship with her disturbed father. In bEstherbs First Communion,b she wrote about a girlbs indoctrination into religious ritual and her revulsion at it. In bYada Yada La Scala,b she wrote about women in a mental hospital. In bLemon Haired Ladies,b she wrote about an older woman pining for a younger man: Whatever you give me Ibll take as it comes Discarding self-pity Ibll manage with crumbs. Unusually for a pop singer of the day, Ms. Previnbs 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, AndrC) Previn, who later earned fame as a classical composer and conductor. Together they were nominated for two Academy Awards: in 1960 for bFaraway Part of Town,b from bPepe,b and in 1962 for bSecond Chance,b from bTwo for the Seesaw.b But their best-known collaboration was the theme from the 1967 film version of Jacqueline Susannbs drug-soaked show-business novel bValley of the Dollsb (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 bCome Saturday Morningb from bThe Sterile Cuckoo,b 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, bOn My Way to Whereb (1970) b the title was a reference to the airplane debacle b included perhaps her most famous song, bBeware of Young Girls,b about Ms. Farrow, and received polarized reviews. On her second, bMythical Kings and Iguanasb (1971), many critics noticed a growing vocal confidence. Her third, bReflections in a Mud Puddle/Taps Tremors and Time Stepsb (1971), included a pained report of and reflection on her fatherbs death, and drew praise from the New York Times music critic Don Heckman. bMs. 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,b he wrote. bBut 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.b Dorothy Veronica Langan was born in New Jersey b sources differ on the town, Rahway or Woodbridge b 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 bAn American in Parisb and bSinginb in the Rain,b 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 1986, she is survived by three stepchildren, Michele 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. bI was always afraid to write music,b she said in 1970. bI wouldnbt have presumed to with a musician like AndrC) 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 thatbs how all these songs were born.b This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: February 14, 2012 An earlier version of this article referred to bOn the Way to Whereb (1970) as Ms. Previnbs first album, but in the 1950s she recorded the album bThe Leprechauns Are Upon Meb under the name Dory Langdon. That version of the article also referred incorrectly to the 1970 albumbs title; it is bOn My Way to Where.b - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a selection of her songs on Youtube. Did Jesus have a baby sister:B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Ql4p5ikno Stone for Bessie Smith:B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwl6pUKZRZ8 The Lady with the Braid:B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4rExrR19M The Midget's Lament:B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWC2aD023Vo Angels and Devils the Following day:B http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjDugDPHqTg ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2012 #199 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send tojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------