From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2012 #201 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 201 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: RIP Dory Previn - vljc [Anita G ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:01:18 +0000 From: Anita G Subject: Re: RIP Dory Previn - vljc Oh, Catherine, this has made me very sad. I always loved Dory Previn and 'Mythical Kings and Iguanas' is one of the only albums I played alongside my Jonis records. I had no idea Dory was older than my Mother. Gosh,86! I read her autobiography 'Bog trotter' many years ago and thought she was a most interesting artist. Thanks for sending this Anita On 15 February 2012 13:48, Catherine McKay wrote: > 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 Ob Connor and > Suzanne > Vega. > > In b With My Daddy in the Attic,b Ms. Previn wrote of her > complicated relationship with her disturbed father. In b Estherb s First > Communion,b she wrote about a girlb s indoctrination into religious ritual > and her revulsion at it. In b Yada Yada La Scala,b she wrote about women > in > a mental hospital. In b Lemon Haired Ladies,b she wrote about an older > woman pining for a younger man: > > Whatever you give me > Ib ll take as it comes > Discarding self-pity > Ib ll manage with crumbs. > > Unusually for a pop singer of > the day, Ms. Previnb 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, AndrC) Previn, who later earned fame as > a > classical composer and conductor. > > Together they were nominated for two > Academy Awards: in 1960 for b Faraway Part of Town,b from b Pepe,b and > in 1962 for b Second Chance,b from b Two for the Seesaw.b But their > best-known collaboration was the theme from the 1967 film version of > Jacqueline Susannb s drug-soaked show-business novel b Valley 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 b Come Saturday Morningb from b The 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, b On My Way to Whereb (1970) b the title was a > reference to the airplane debacle b included perhaps her most famous song, > b Beware of Young Girls,b about Ms. Farrow, and received polarized > reviews. > On her second, b Mythical Kings and Iguanasb (1971), many critics noticed > a > growing vocal confidence. Her third, b Reflections in a Mud Puddle/Taps > Tremors and Time Stepsb (1971), included a pained report of and reflection > on her fatherb s death, and drew praise from the New York Times music > critic > Don Heckman. > > b 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,b he wrote. b 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.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 b An American in > Parisb and b Singinb 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. > > b I > was always afraid to write music,b she said in 1970. b I wouldnb t 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 thatb s 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 > b On the Way to Whereb (1970) as Ms. Previnb s first album, but in the > 1950s she recorded the album b The Leprechauns Are Upon Meb under the name > Dory Langdon. That version of the article also referred incorrectly to the > 1970 albumb s title; it is b On 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 #201 ***************************** ------- To post messages to the list, send tojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------