title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: The fact that W.S. is referred to as a "player", and is mentioned after a complimentary comment on Shakespeare's poetry has led several scholars to conclude that Willobie is describing a conversation with Shakespeare about love affairs. "W.S." goes on to give Willobie advice about how to win over women.


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Other possible evidence of other affairs are that twenty-six of Shakespeare's "Sonnets" are love poems addressed to a married woman (the so-called 'Dark Lady').


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Shakespeare's sonnets are cited as evidence of his bisexuality. The poems were initially published, perhaps without his approval, in 1609. 126 of them appear to be love poems addressed to a young man known as the 'Fair Lord' or 'Fair Youth'; this is often assumed to be the same person as the 'Mr W.H.' to whom the sonnets are dedicated. The identity of this figure (if he is indeed based on a real person) is unclear; the most popular candidates are Shakespeare's patrons, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, both of whom were considered handsome in their youth.


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Explicit references to sexual acts or physical lust also occur in the Dark Lady sonnets, which suggest that the poet and the Lady are lovers. Nevertheless, there are numerous passages in the sonnets addressed to the Fair Lord that express desire for a younger man. In Sonnet 13, he is called "dear my love", and Sonnet 15 announces that the poet is at "war with Time for love of you." Sonnet 18 asks "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate", and in Sonnet 20 the narrator calls the younger man the "master-mistress of my passion". The poems refer to sleepless nights, anguish and jealousy caused by the youth. In addition, there is considerable emphasis on the young man's beauty: in Sonnet 20, the narrator theorises that the youth was originally a woman with whom Mother Nature had fallen in love and, to resolve the dilemma of lesbianism, added a penis ("pricked thee out for women's pleasure"), an addition the narrator describes as "to my purpose nothing". The line can be read literally as a denial of sexual interest. However, given the homoerotic tone of the rest of the sonnet, it could also be meant to appear disingenuous, mimicking the common sentiment of would-be seducers: 'it's "you" I want, not your body’. In Sonnet 20, the narrator tells the youth to sleep with women, but to love only him: "mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure".


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: In some sonnets addressed to the youth, such as Sonnet 52, the erotic punning is particularly intense: "So is the time that keeps you as my chest, / Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, / To make some special instant special blest, / By new unfolding his imprisoned pride." In Elizabethan bawdy, 'pride' is a euphemism for penis, especially an erect one.


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Others have countered that these passages could be referring to intense platonic friendship, rather than sexual love. In the preface to his 1961 Pelican edition, Douglas Bush writes: Since modern readers are unused to such ardor in masculine friendship and are likely to leap at the notion of homosexuality (a notion sufficiently refuted by the sonnets themselves), we may remember that such an ideal, often exalted above the love of women, could exist in real life, from Montaigne to Sir Thomas Browne, and was conspicuous in Renaissance literature. Richard Dutton writes that the Shakespearean scholar A. L. Rowse never accepted that the Bard was homosexual to any extent at all, writing that "Shakespeare’s interest in the youth is not at all sexual". Dutton comments:Rowse’s conviction on this point remained unshaken to his death, which is odd, not least because he himself was widely understood to be homosexual and wrote openly about writers like Marlowe and Wilde. .


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Another explanation is that the poems are not autobiographical but fiction, another of Shakespeare's "dramatic characterization[s]", so that the narrator of the sonnets should not be presumed to be Shakespeare himself.


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: In 1640, John Benson published a second edition of the sonnets in which he changed most of the pronouns from masculine to feminine so that readers would believe nearly all of the sonnets were addressed to the Dark Lady. Benson's modified version soon became the best-known text, and it was not until 1780 that Edmond Malone re-published the sonnets in their original forms.


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: The question of the sexual orientation of the sonnets' author was openly articulated in 1780, when George Steevens, upon reading Shakespeare's description of a young man as his "master-mistress" remarked, "it is impossible to read this fulsome panegyrick, addressed to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation". Other scholars concurred with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's comment, made around 1800, that Shakespeare's love was "pure" and in his sonnets there is "not even an allusion to that very worst of all possible vices". Robert Browning, writing of Wordsworth's assertion that "with this key [the Sonnets] Shakespeare unlocked his heart", famously replied in his poem "House", "If so, the less Shakespeare he!"


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Oscar Wilde addressed the issue of the dedicatee of the sonnets in his 1889 short story "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." in which he identified Will Hughes, a boy actor in Shakespeare's company, as both "Mr W. H." and the "Fair Youth".


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: The controversy continued in the 20th century. By 1944, the Variorum edition of the sonnets contained an appendix with the conflicting views of nearly forty commentators. In the year after "the law in Britain decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting males over twenty-one", the historian G. P. V. Akrigg published the first extended study of the Earl of Southampton, "who he had no doubt was the 'fair youth' of the sonnets." Akrigg wrote, "One is forced to suspect that some element of homosexuality lay at the root of the trouble . . . The love which he felt for Southampton may well have been the most intense emotion of his life."


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Literary theorist Stephen Greenblatt, in writing about sexuality within Southampton’s world, "assumes that something went on—'whether they only stared longingly at one another or embraced, kissed passionately, went to bed together'".


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: Stanley Wells also addressed the topic in "Looking for Sex in Shakespeare" (2004), arguing that a balance had yet to be drawn between the deniers of any possible homoerotic expression in the sonnets and more recent, liberal commentators who have "swung too far in the opposite direction" and allowed their own sensibilities to influence their understanding. One element that complicates the question of Shakespeare's sexuality is that same-sex friendships in the Renaissance were often characterized by shows of affection (e.g., bed sharing, confessions of love) that contemporary readers associate with modern-day sexual relationships.


title: Sexuality of William Shakespeare

text: A recent notable scholarly dispute on the matter occurred in the letters pages of "The Times Literary Supplement" in 2014.


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: "Gloria" is a rock song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, and originally recorded by Morrison's band Them in 1964. It was released as the B-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go". The song became a garage rock staple and a part of many rock bands' repertoires.


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: According to Morrison, he wrote "Gloria" while performing with the Monarchs in Germany in the summer of 1963, at just about the time he turned 18 years old. He started to perform it at the Maritime Hotel when he returned to Belfast and joined up with the Gamblers to form the band Them. He would ad-lib lyrics as he performed, sometimes stretching the song to 15 or 20 minutes. After signing a contract with Dick Rowe and Decca, Them went to London for a recording session at Decca Three Studios in West Hampstead on 5 April 1964; "Gloria" was one of the seven songs recorded that day.


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: Besides Morrison, present were Billy Harrison on guitar, Alan Henderson on bass guitar, Ronnie Millings on drums and Pat McCauley on keyboards. Rowe brought in session musicians Arthur Greenslade on organ and Bobby Graham on drums, since he considered the Them members too inexperienced. There remains some dispute about whether Millings and McCauley were actually miked, but Alan Henderson contends that Them constituted the first rock group to use two drummers on a recording. Although some sources claim that Jimmy Page played second guitar, other sources deny this.


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: Decca Records released "Gloria" as the B-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go" in the UK on 6 November 1964, with only the latter reaching the singles chart. In the US, the same pairing was released by Parrot Records, which became a regional hit on the US West Coast. Between March and June 1965, the single (both songs) appeared on weekly Top 40 playlists for Los Angeles radio station KRLA, reaching number one for three weeks in April. A year later, after the release of a cover version of "Gloria" by the Shadows of Knight, Them's original entered the national "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Both peaked during the week of 14 May 1966, with Them at number 75 and the Shadows of Knight at number 10. "Cash Box" described it as "a bluesy, up tempo stomp'er devoted to 'Gloria.


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: "Gloria" was added to Them's first UK album "The Angry Young Them" (1965), which was re-titled with some different tracks as "Them" in the US. The song also appears on several compilations, including "The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison" (1997) and "The Best of Van Morrison" (1990).


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: One explanation for the timeless popularity of the song was offered in AllMusic's review by Bill Janovitz:


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: "Gloria" was rated number 69 on Dave Marsh's list in the 1989 book "The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made". He described the song as "one of the few rock songs that's actually as raunchy as its reputation."


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: In his book "Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles", Paul Williams said about the two sides of the "Baby Please Don't Go/Gloria" recording: "Into the heart of the beast ... here is something so good, so pure, that if no other hint of it but this record existed, there would still be such a thing as rock and roll ... Van Morrison's voice a fierce beacon in the darkness, the lighthouse at the end of the world. Resulting in one of the most perfect rock anthems known to humankind."


title: Gloria (Them song)

text: In 1999, "Gloria" by Them received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award. In 2000, "Gloria" by Them was listed as number 81 on VH1's list of The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. In 2004, "Gloria" by Them was ranked No. 208 on "Rolling Stone"s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, moving down to No. 211 in the 2010 updated list, and 413 in the 2021 list. "Gloria" was also included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll twice: by Patti Smith and by Shadows of Knight.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Criticism of democracy has been a key part of democracy and its functions. As Josiah Ober explains, "the legitimate role of critics" of democracy may be difficult to define, but one "approach is to divide critics into 'good internal' critics (those who call upon the constitutional regime to be true to its own highest principles) and 'bad external' critics who reject the values embraced and nurtured by constitutional democracy."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Since classical antiquity and through the modern era, democracy has been associated with "rule by the people," "rule by the majority," and free selection or election, either through direct participation or elected representation, respectively.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Political thinkers have approached critiques of democratic political systems from different perspectives. Many times it is not necessary to oppose democracy by its simplest definition – "rule by the people" – but, rather, seek to question or expand this popular definition. In their work, they distinguish between democratic principles that are effectively implemented through undemocratic procedures; undemocratic principles that are implemented through democratic procedures; and variations of the same kind. For instance, some critics of democracy would agree with Winston Churchill's famous remark, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Other critics may be more prepared to describe existing democratic regimes as anything but "rule by the people."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Leading contemporary thinkers in critical democratic theory include Jürgen Habermas, Robert A. Dahl, Robert E. Goodin, , Joseph Schumpeter, James S. Fishkin, Ian Shapiro, Jason Brennan, Hélène Landemore, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Critics of democracy have often tried to highlight democracy's inconsistencies, paradoxes, and limits by contrasting it with other forms of governments such as epistocracy, plural voting, or lottocrative alternatives. They have characterized most modern democracies as democratic polyarchies and democratic aristocracies; they have identified fascist moments in modern democracies; they have termed the societies produced by modern democracies as neo-feudal; while yet others have contrasted democracy with fascism, anarcho-capitalism, theocracy, and absolute monarchy. The most widely known critics of democracy include Plato and the authors of the Federalist Papers, who were interested in establishing a representative democracy in the early United States instead of a direct democracy. The authors of the Federalist papers explained why the Constitution was based on a certain type of democracy, also called an American republic or liberal democracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Additional historical figures associated with the critique of democracy include Aristotle, Plato, Montesquieu, James Harrington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Martin Heidegger, Hubert Lagardelle, Charles Maurras, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, and Elazar Menachem Shach.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Some critiques have improved democracy, such as those of Plato and Aristotle, who some scholars believe laid the foundation for modern constitutional democracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: As Robert Dahl writes, "Although the practices of modern democracy bear only a weak resemblance to the political institutions of classical Greece...Greek democratic ideas have been more influential...[and] what we know of their ideas comes less from the writings and speeches of democratic advocates, of which only fragments survive, than from their critics."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Aristotle was a mild critic "who disliked the power that he thought the expansion of democracy necessarily gave to the poor." Plato was an opponent of democracy who advocated for "government by the best qualified." Modern liberal democracy incorporated some of these critiques. For example, James Madison "trained rigorously in...ancient learning" as a young man, and the ideas of ancient authors explain a "facet of Madison's recorded attitude on the nature of man." The influence of the ancient critiques of democracy is seen in how Madison spent the months before the Constitutional Convention "studying many centuries of political philosophy and histories of past attempts at republican forms of government."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: According to Dahl, Aristotle and Plato would agree with most advocates of modern democracy that an aim of society is "to produce good citizens" and "Virtue, justice, and happiness are companions...[in] developing citizens who seek the common good."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Thucydides, the famous ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, witnessed the fall of Athenian democracy and applied scientific history in his critique of the democratic government. At the heart of his critique were how democracy failed "in the search for truth" and how leaders and citizens attempted "to impose their own speech-dependent meanings on reality." Thucydides blamed "public orators" and demagogues for a failure of epistemic knowledge, allowing most Athenians to "believe silly things about their own past and the institutions of their opponents."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Confucius greatly influenced East Asian societies over time, and political leaders in Singapore and China today often say Confucianism provides a more "coherent ideological basis for a well-ordered Asian society than Western notions of individual liberty." Nonetheless, East Asian countries employ forms of Democracy and Communism, political systems developed in the West. The notion of "well-ordered Asian" society is more compatible with Communism, employed by China and Vietnam, both rapidly growing and globalized economies in the 21st century, but also in North Korea which follows isolationism which hampers the improvement of lives of average citizens.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: From 500-1500 AD, philosophers and political leaders around the world often advocated for traditional systems of governing society, which were critical of democracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Thomas Aquinas advocated for "a mixed government combining elements of democracy, aristocracy and kingship...[which] is reminiscent of Aristotle’s preference for mixed government over either democracy or oligarchy." Scholars also consider "the substantial medieval literature in support of the Inquisitions" as opposed to modern ideas of democracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Democracy existed in a few "city-states of medieval Italy...[which] were ultimately submerged in imperial or oligarchic rule." The idea of "representation was not invented by democrats but developed instead as a medieval institution of monarchical and aristocratic government," and had its beginnings in "assemblies summoned by monarch, or sometimes the nobles themselves, to deal with important matters of state." The "state of military technology and organization" in medieval Europe was "highly unfavorable in its effects" on democracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Medieval Jewish political philosophy was influenced by Plato, Muslim thought, and halakhic concepts and was "monarchist, and inherently anti-democratic."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: As Amartya Sen wrote about traditional Asian societies, "It is not hard, of course, to find authoritarian writings within the Asian traditions. But neither is it hard to find them in Western classics: One has only to reflect on the writings of Plato or Aquinas to see that devotion to discipline is not a special Asian taste."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Since the post-classical period, Islam has been an important pillar of society for much of the world, and some critics have defended this tradition from "the secular assumptions of the Enlightenment" and an "uncritical universalism," which "erodes historical continuity and the sense of community that sustains traditional societies." In many societies today, people of faith challenge the idea of "secularism as the only 'rational' way to deal with the challenges of life."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Thomas Hobbes, one of the first philosophers of the Enlightenment, published Leviathan in 1651 in defense of "absolute sovereignty" and supporting the royalists in the English Civil War. Hobbes was a critic of democracy because "the sovereign in a democracy (i.e. the people) can only exercise its power when it is actually assembled together...Only in a monarchy is the capacity to govern always exercised." Hobbes also thought democracy would lead to instability, conflict, glory seeking, mistrust, and undermining the social contract. Later Enlightenment thinkers, such as Madison who shared Hobbesian concerns about "the strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses" of human nature, would use some of these critiques to improve modern democracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Romantic critics of democracy include Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, James Fitzjames Stephen, Henry Maine, and William Lecky. In his study, Benjamin Evans Lippincott wrote that "they opposed democracy fundamentally for the same reason as Plato—that democracy led to disorder." Their contribution was to critique democracy under capitalism in modern industrial society. They believed that democracy produced anarchy in society, not simply anarchy within the individual as Plato believed.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Lippincott proposed that their three leading doctrines were "the common man's inferiority, the title of the few to rule, and authority". The main sources of these ideas were puritanism, middle-class ideas of power, and the classical education that they received in their youth. The three doctrines were "most perfectly represented in Plato's "Republic"", while classical history seemed to provide examples of "the common man's inferiority" as in the cases of Athens and Rome, "which showed the populace turning to disorder". The three doctrines were developed during the Reformation and the Enlightenment by writers like John Calvin, Edmund Burke and David Hume.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Plato believed it's reckless to allow common men to vote because the vote of an expert has equal value to the vote of an incompetent.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: One such argument is that the benefits of a specialized society may be compromised by democracy. As ordinary citizens are encouraged to take part in the political life of the country, they have the power to directly influence the outcome of government policies through the democratic procedures of voting, campaigning and the use of press. The result is that government policies may be more influenced by non-specialist opinions and thereby the effectiveness compromised, especially if a policy is very technically sophisticated and/or the general public inadequately informed. For example, there is no guarantee that those who campaign about the government's economic policies are themselves professional economists or academically competent in this particular discipline, regardless of whether they were well-educated. Essentially this means that a democratic government may not be providing the most good for the largest number of people. However, some have argued that this should not even be the goal of democracies because the minority could be seriously mistreated under that purported goal.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: The real difference between ancient democracies and modern republics lies, according to Madison, in ""the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity" from any share in the "latter", and not in the "total exclusion of the representatives of the people" from the administration of the "former".— Bernard Manin, p. 2 (See: Madison, "Federalist 63," in "The Federalist Papers," p. 387; Madison's emphasis.)Bernard Manin is interested in distinguishing modern representative republics, such as the United States, from ancient direct democracies, such as Athens. Manin believes that both aspire to "rule of the people," but that the nature of modern representative republics leads them to "rule of the aristocratic." Manin explains that in ancient democracies, virtually every citizen had the chance to be selected to populate the government but in modern republics, only elites have the chance of being elected. He does not defend this phenomenon but rather seeks to describe it.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Manin draws from James Harrington, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to suggest that the dominant form of government, representative as opposed to direct, is effectively aristocratic. He proposes that modern representative governments exercise political power through aristocratic elections which, in turn, brings into question democracy's "rule of the people" principle. As far as Montesquieu is concerned, elections favor the "best" citizens who Manin notes tend to be wealthy and upper-class. As far as Rousseau is concerned, elections favor the incumbent government officials or the citizens with the strongest personalities, which results in hereditary aristocracy. Manin further evinces the aristocratic nature of representative governments by contrasting them with the ancient style of selection by lot. Manin notes that Montesquieu believed that lotteries prevent jealousy and distribute offices equally (among citizens from different ranks), while Rousseau believed that lotteries choose indifferently, preventing self-interest and partiality from polluting the citizen's choice (and thus prevent hereditary aristocracy).


title: Criticism of democracy

text: However, Manin also provides criticism of direct democracy, or selection by lot. Manin reflects on Montesquieu's interrogation of the extent to which Athenian direct democracy was truly direct. Montesquieu finds that citizens who had reason to believe they would be accused as "unworthy of selection" commonly withheld their names from the lottery, thereby making selection by lot vulnerable to self-selection bias and, thus, aristocratic in nature. Manin does not dwell on direct democracy's potentially aristocratic elements, perhaps because he shares Montesquieu's belief that there is nothing alarming about the exclusion of citizens who may be incompetent; this exclusion may be inevitable in any method of selection.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Additionally, Manin is interested in explaining the discrepancy between 18th century American and French revolutionaries' "declaration" of the "equality of all citizens" and their "enactment" of (aristocratic) elections in their respective democratic experiments. Manin suggests that the discrepancy is explained by the revolutionaries' contemporary preoccupation with one form of equality over another. The revolutionaries prioritized gaining the equal right to consent to their choice of government (even a potentially aristocratic democracy), at the expense of seeking the equal right to be face of that democracy. And it is elections, not lots, that provide citizens with more opportunities to consent. In elections, citizens consent both to the procedure of elections and to the product of the elections (even if they produce the election of elites). In lotteries, citizens consent only to the procedure of lots, but not to the product of the lots (even if they produce election of the average person). That is, if the revolutionaries prioritized consent to be governed over equal opportunity to serve as the government, then their choice of elections over lotteries makes sense.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: A major scholarly attack on the basis of democracy was made by German-Italian political scientist Robert Michels who developed the mainstream political science theory of the iron law of oligarchy in 1911. Michels argued that oligarchy is inevitable as an "iron law" within any organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of organization and on the topic of democracy, Michels stated: "It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy" and went on to state "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy." Michels stated that the official goal of democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable. Michels had formerly been a Marxist but became drawn to the syndicalism of Sorel, Eduoard Berth, Arturo Labriola, and Enrico Leone and had become strongly opposed parliamentarian, legalistic, and bureaucratic socialism of social democracy and in contrast supported an activist, voluntarist, anti-parliamentarian socialism. Michels would later become a supporter of fascism upon Mussolini's rise to power in 1922, viewing fascism's goal to destroy liberal democracy in a sympathetic manner.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Charles Maurras, an FRS member of the "Action française" movement, stated in a famous dictum "Democracy is evil, democracy is death." Maurras' concept of "politique naturelle" declared recognition of inescapable biological inequality and thereby natural hierarchies, and claimed that the individual is naturally subordinated to social collectivities such as the family, the society, and the state, which he claims are doomed to fail if based upon the "myth of equality" or "abstract liberty". Maurras criticized democracy as being a "government by numbers" in which quantity matters more over quality and prefers the worst over the best. Maurras denounced the principles of liberalism as described in "The Social Contract" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" as based upon the false assumption of liberty and the false assumption of equality. He claimed that the parliamentary system subordinates the national interest, or common good, to private interests of a parliament's representatives where only short-sighted interests of individuals prevail.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: American contemporary philosopher Jason Brennan has similar remarks against democratic governments. Brennan's main argument opposing democracies is the issue of voter ignorance and voter irrationality. Brennan claims that "the democratic system incentivizes them [voting aged citizens] to be ignorant (or more precisely, fails to incentivize them [voting aged citizens] to be informed)". Throughout Brennan's book, "Against Democracy", he explains the various issues with voter incompetence and proposed an alternative system of government known as an epistocracy.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: French revolutionary syndicalist Hubert Lagardelle claimed that French revolutionary syndicalism came to being as the result of "the reaction of the proletariat against idotic democracy," which he claimed was "the "popular form" of bourgeois dominance." Lagardelle opposed democracy for its universalism, and believed in the necessity of class separation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, as democracy did not recognize the social differences between them.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Israeli politician Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach promoted Judaic law to be the natural governance for Jews and condemned "Democracy as a machinery of lies, false notions, pursuit of narrow interests and deceit - as opposed to the Torah regime, which is based on seeking the ultimate truth." Shach criticized democracy for having no real goals, saying "The whole point of democracy is money. The one does what the other asks him to do in pursuit of his own interest, so as to be given what he himself asks for, and the whole purpose of the transaction is that each would get what they want."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: More recently, democracy is criticized for not offering enough political stability. As governments are frequently elected on and off there tend to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally. Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the mass media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. Frequent policy changes with regard to business and immigration are likely to deter investment and so hinder economic growth. For this reason, many people have put forward the idea that democracy is undesirable for a developing country in which economic growth and the reduction of poverty are top priority. However, Anthony Downs argued that the political market works much the same way as the economic market, and that there could potentially be an equilibrium in the system because of democratic process. However, he eventually argued that imperfect knowledge in politicians and voters prevented the reaching of that equilibrium.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Democracy is also criticised for frequent elections due to the instability of coalition governments. Coalitions are frequently formed "after" the elections in many countries (for example India) and the basis of alliance is predominantly to enable a viable majority, not an ideological concurrence.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: This opportunist alliance not only has the handicap of having to cater to too many ideologically opposing factions, but it is usually short lived since any perceived or actual imbalance in the treatment of coalition partners, or changes to leadership in the coalition partners themselves, can very easily result in the coalition partner withdrawing its support from the government.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Democratic institutions work on consensus to decide an issue, which usually takes longer than a unilateral decision.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: M. S. Golwalkar, in his book "Bunch of Thoughts", describes democracy as, "is to a very large extent only a myth in practice...The high-sounding concept of 'individual freedom' only meant the freedom of those talented few to exploit the rest."


title: Criticism of democracy

text: The inability of governments around the world to successfully deal with corruption is causing a global crisis of democracy. Whilst countries that have high levels of democracy tend to have low levels of different forms of corruption, it is also clear that countries with moderate levels of democracy have high corruption, as well as countries with no democracy having very little corruption. Varying types of democratic policies reduce corruption, but only high levels of, and multiple kinds of democratic institutions, such as open and free elections combined with judicial and legislative constraints, will effectively reduce corruption. One important internal element of democracy is the electoral process which can be considered easily corruptible. For example, it is not inevitable in a democracy that elections will be free and fair. The giving and receiving of bribes, the threat or use of violence, treating and impersonation are common ways that the electoral process can be corrupted, meaning that democracy is not impenetrable from external problems and can be criticised for allowing it to take place.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Jason Brennan believes that voter ignorance is a major problem in America and is the main objection to democracies in general. Brennan states that “less than 30% of Americans can name two or more of the rights listed in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights”. Naturally, this creates a problem because an ignorant vote counts for the exact same as an informed vote. In order to be an informed voter one must have extensive knowledge of the candidate’s current and previous political beliefs/tendencies, according to Brennan. Additionally, Brennan would claim that to truly be an informed voter one must be educated in other disciplines outside of politics – for instance, history and economics. The standard in which Brennan places on voters is significantly high; it is understandable that most Americans do not meet these expectations.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: While most Americans fall short of these expectations, the cause of voter ignorance is not due to a lack of intelligence. Rather voters are simply rationally ignorant and rationally irrational. Firstly, rational ignorance means that voters are logical and/or reasonable for staying uninformed about politics. This is because to become an informed voter, according to Brennan's standards, it would be extremely cost-prohibitive to the individual. It would take an enormous amount of time to become informed to such a level and stay informed about current political events. When doing a cost-benefit analysis, most people would find that becoming informed is not worth their time. There are other alternatives that would be more worth the individual’s time/effort. Therefore, people are considered rational for choosing not to be informed. Secondly, rational irrationality refers to the fact that it is logical for people to have cognitive biases resulting in irrational beliefs. Similar to why it is rational for voters to be ignorant, the cost-benefit analysis to correct cognitive biases is not in favor of the informed voter. Brennan claims that “just as it is instrumentally rational for most people to remain ignorant about politics, it is instrumentally rational for most of them to indulge their biases”. The costs outweigh the benefits because it would take an excessive amount of work to find neutral/fair information and correct one’s own biases. In both cases, voters remain ignorant and irrational because the costs to become an impartial, informed voter do not outweigh the benefits. The impact of a competent vote is futile. In the grand scheme of things, a single vote amounts for very little. The chances that one’s vote would be the deciding factor in the election is minuscule; therefore, why would one take the time to inform themselves with very little reward? One could spend an abundance of time becoming informed and rational only to result in the same outcome.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: The new establishment of democratic institutions, in countries where the associated practices have as yet been uncommon or deemed culturally unacceptable, can result in institutions that are not sustainable in the long term. One circumstance supporting this outcome may be when it is part of the common perception among the populace that the institutions were established as a direct result of foreign pressure.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Sustained regular inspection from democratic countries, however effortful and well-meaning, are normally not sufficient in preventing the erosion of democratic practices. In the cases of several African countries, corruption still is rife in spite of democratically elected governments, as one of the most severe examples, Zimbabwe, is often perceived to have backfired into outright militarism.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Economists, such as Meltzer and Richard, have added that as industrial activity in a democracy increases, so too do the people's demands for subsidies and support from the government. By the median voter theorem, only a few people actually hold the balance of power in the country, and many may be unhappy with their decisions. In this way, they argue, democracies are inefficient.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Such a system could result in a wealth disparity or racial discrimination. Fierlbeck (1998) points out that such a result is not necessarily due to a failing in the democratic process, but rather, "because democracy is responsive to the desires of a large middle class increasingly willing to disregard the muted voices of economically marginalized groups within its own borders." The will of the democratic majority may not always be in the best interest of all citizens.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Voters may not be educated enough to exercise their democratic rights prudently. Politicians may take advantage of voters' irrationality, and compete more in the field of public relations and tactics, than in ideology. While arguments against democracy are often taken by advocates of democracy as an attempt to maintain or revive traditional hierarchy and autocratic rule, many extensions have been made to develop the argument further. In Lipset's 1959 essay about the requirements for forming democracy, he found that almost all emerging democracies provided good education. However, education alone cannot sustain a democracy, though Caplan did note in 2005 that as people become educated, they think more like economists.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Politicians and special interests have attempted to manipulate public opinion for as long as recorded history − this has put into question the feasibility of democratic government. Critics claim that mass media actually shapes public opinion, and can therefore be used to "control" democracy. Opinion polls before the election are under special criticism. Furthermore, the disclosure of reputation-damaging material shortly before elections may be used to significantly manipulate public opinion. In the United States the FBI was criticized for announcing that the agency would examine potentially incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server just 11 days before the election. It has been said that misinformation − such as fake news − has become central to elections around the world. In December 2016 United States' intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia worked "to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency" − including passing material against the Democrats to WikiLeaks to discredit the election and favor Donald Trump. Social bots and other forms of online propaganda as well as search engine result algorithms may be used to alter the perception and opinion of voters. In 2016 Andrés Sepúlveda disclosed that he manipulated public opinion to rig elections in Latin America. According to him, with a budget of $600,000, he led a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices to help Enrique Peña Nieto, a right-of-center candidate, win the election. This highlights that a significant criticism of democracy is that voters can be so easily manipulated.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Various reasons can be found for eliminating or suppressing political opponents. Methods such as false flags, counterterrorism-laws, planting or creating compromising material and perpetuation of public fear may be used to suppress dissent. After a failed coup d'état over 110,000 people have been purged and nearly 40,000 have been imprisoned in Turkey, which is or was considered to be a democratic nation, during the 2016 Turkish purges.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Fake parties, phantom political rivals and "scarecrow" opponents may be used to undermine the opposition.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Too much information, as common in the present digital age, where people are deluged by information through newspapers, daily television, social media and various other forms, is called information overload. This creates a situation in democracies where people are too fatigued to process all this information intelligently or incompetent or unwilling to do so, for various reasons.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Robert A. Dahl defines democracies as systems of government that respond nearly fully to each and every one of their citizens. He then poses that no such, fully responsive system exists today. However, this does not mean that "partially" democratic regimes do not exist—they do. Thus, Dahl rejects a democracy dichotomy in favor of a democratization spectrum. To Dahl, the question is not whether a country is a democracy or not. The question is to what extent a country is experiencing democratization at a national level. Dahl measures this democratization in terms of the country's endorsement and reception of public contestation. And polyarchy, or "rule of the many people," is the only existing form of democratizeable government; that is, it is within polyarchies that democratization can flourish. Countries do not immediately transform from hegemonies and competitive oligarchies into democracies. Instead, a country that adopts democracy as its form of government can only claim to have switched to polyarchy, which is conducive to, but does not guarantee, democratization. Dahl's polyarchy spectrum ends at the point in which a country becomes a full polyarchy at the national level and begins to democratize at the subnational level, among its social and private affairs. Dahl is not deeply concerned about the limits of his polyarchy spectrum because he believes that most countries today still have a long way before they reach full polyarchy status. For Dahl, whatever lies beyond full polyarchy is only possible, and thus only a concern, for advanced countries like those of Western Europe.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Plato's "Republic" presents a critical view of democracy through the narration of Socrates: "foolish leaders of Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike." In his work, Plato lists 5 forms of government from best to worst. Assuming that "the Republic" was intended to be a serious critique of the political thought in Athens, Plato argues that only Kallipolis, an aristocracy led by the unwilling philosopher-kings (the wisest men), is a just form of government.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Plato rejected Athenian democracy on the basis that such democracies were anarchic societies without internal unity, that they followed citizens' impulses rather than pursuing the common good, that democracies are unable to allow a sufficient number of their citizens to have their voices heard, and that such democracies were typically run by fools. Plato attacked Athenian democracies for mistaking anarchy for freedom. The lack of coherent unity in Athenian democracy made Plato conclude that such democracies were a mere collection of individuals occupying a common space rather than a form of political organization.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: According to Plato, other forms of government place too much focus on lesser virtues and degenerate into other forms from best to worst, starting with timocracy, which overvalues honour, then oligarchy, which overvalues wealth, which is followed by democracy. In democracy, the oligarchs, or merchant, are unable to wield their power effectively and the people take over, electing someone who plays on their wishes (for example, by throwing lavish festivals). However, the government grants the people too much freedom, and the state degenerates into the fourth form, tyranny, or mob rule.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: If we base our critique on the definition of democracy as governance based on the will of the majority, there can be some foreseeable consequences to this form of rule. For example, Fierlbeck (1998: 12) points out that the middle class majority in a country may decide to redistribute wealth and resources into the hands of those that they feel are most capable of investing or increasing them. Of course this is only a critique of a subset of types of democracy that primarily use majority rule.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: US President James Madison devoted the whole of Federalist No. 10 to a scathing critique of democracy and offered that republics are a far better solution, saying: "...democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Madison offered that republics were superior to democracies because republics safeguarded against tyranny of the majority, stating in Federalist No. 10: "the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic".


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Professors Richard Ellis of Willamette University and Michael Nelson of Rhodes College argue that much constitutional thought, from Madison to Lincoln and beyond, has focused on "the problem of majority tyranny." They conclude, "The principles of republican government embedded in the Constitution represent an effort by the framers to ensure that the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would not be trampled by majorities." Thomas Jefferson warned that "an elective despotism is not the government we fought for." A constitution would limit the powers of what a simple majority can accomplish.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Machiavelli put the idea that democracies will tend to cater to the whims of the people, who follow false ideas to entertain themselves, squander their reserves, and do not deal with potential threats to their rule until it is far too late.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: However Machiavelli's definition of democracy was narrower than the current one. He hypothesized that a hybrid system of government incorporating facets of all three major types (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy) could break this cycle. Many modern democracies that have separation of powers are claimed to represent these kinds of hybrid governments. However, in modern democracies there is usually no direct correlation with Machiavelli's idea, because of weakening of the separation of powers, or erosion of the original function of the various branches. For example, the modern United States executive branch has slowly accumulated more power from the legislative branch, and the Senate no longer functions as a quasi-aristocratic body as was originally intended, since senators are now democratically elected.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Some have tried to argue that the Coase theorem applies to political markets as well. Daron Acemoglu, however, provides evidence to the contrary, claiming that the Coase Theorem is only valid while there are "rules of the game," so to speak, that are being enforced by the government. But when there is nobody there to enforce the rules for the government itself, there is no way to guarantee that low transaction costs will lead to an efficient outcome in democracies.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: For several centuries, scholars have studied voting inconsistencies, also called voting paradoxes. These studies have culminated in Arrow's impossibility theorem, which suggests that democracy is logically incoherent. This is based on a certain set of criteria for democratic decision-making being inherently conflicting. This situation was metaphorically characterized by Charles Plott:


title: Criticism of democracy

text: Jason Brennan, the author of "Against Democracy", discredits the democratic system and proposes an alternative form of government known as an epistocracy. Instead of giving everyone the right to vote, an epistocratic system would only give a vote to those that are competent. Only citizens with an elite political understanding would have a say in government. Brennan’s whole argument in preferring an epistocracy to a democracy revolves around the issue of voter ignorance. Brennan believes that voter ignorance is a major problem in America and is the main objection to democracies in general.


title: Criticism of democracy

text: The practice of orthodox Islam in the form of Salafism can clash with a democratic system. The core precept of Islam, that of "tawheed", (the "oneness of God"), can be interpreted by fundamentalists to mean, among other things, that democracy as a political system is incompatible with the purported notion that laws not handed down by God should not be recognized.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: John Wesley Harding is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on December 27, 1967, by Columbia Records. Produced by Bob Johnston, the album marked Dylan's return to semi-acoustic instrumentation and folk-influenced songwriting after three albums of lyrically abstract, blues-indebted rock music. "John Wesley Harding" shares many stylistic threads with, and was recorded around the same time as, the prolific series of home recording sessions with The Band, partly released in 1975 as "The Basement Tapes", and released in complete form in 2014 as "".


title: John Wesley Harding

text: "John Wesley Harding" was well received by critics and sold well, reaching on the U.S. charts and topping the UK charts. Less than three months after its release, "John Wesley Harding" was certified gold by the RIAA. "All Along the Watchtower" became one of his most popular songs after Jimi Hendrix's rendition was released in the autumn of 1968.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The album was included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in "" (1981). In 2003, it was ranked number 301 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, moving to 303 in the 2012 version of that list, then to 337 in the 2020 version. It was voted number 203 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book "All Time Top 1000 Albums" (2000).


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Dylan went to work on "John Wesley Harding" in the fall of 1967. By then, 18 months had passed since the completion of "Blonde on Blonde". After recovering from the worst effects of his motorcycle accident, Dylan spent a substantial amount of time recording the informal basement sessions with The Band in West Saugerties, New York. During that time, he stockpiled a large number of recordings, including many new compositions. He eventually submitted nearly all of them for copyright, but declined to include any of them in his next studio release (Dylan would not release any of those recordings to the commercial market until 1975's "The Basement Tapes", by which time some of them had been bootlegged, usually sourced from an easy-to-find set of publisher's demos). Instead, Dylan used a different set of songs for "John Wesley Harding".


title: John Wesley Harding

text: It is not known when these songs were actually written, but none of them have turned up in the dozens of basement recordings that have since surfaced. Robbie Robertson, the guitarist and principal songwriter of The Band, recalled that "it was just on a kind of whim that Bob went down to Nashville. And there, with just a couple of guys, he put those songs down on tape." Those sessions took place in the autumn of 1967, requiring less than twelve hours over three stints in the studio.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Dylan was once again recording with a band, but the instrumentation was very sparse. During most of the recording, the rhythm section of drummer Kenneth A. Buttrey and bassist Charlie McCoy were the only ones supporting Dylan, who handled all harmonica, guitar, piano, and vocal parts. "I didn't intentionally come out with some kind of mellow sound," Dylan said in 1971. "I would have liked… more steel guitar, more piano. More music… I didn't sit down and plan that sound."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The first session, held on October 17 at Columbia's Studio A, lasted only three hours, with Dylan recording master takes of "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine", "Drifter's Escape", and "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest". Dylan returned to the studio on November 6, recording master takes for "All Along the Watchtower", "John Wesley Harding", "As I Went Out One Morning", "I Pity the Poor Immigrant", and "I Am a Lonesome Hobo". Dylan returned for one last session on November 29, completing all of the remaining work.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Sometime between the second and third session, Dylan approached Robertson and keyboardist/saxophonist Garth Hudson to furnish overdubs on the basic tracks, but as Robertson recalled: "We did talk about doing some overdubbing on it, but I really liked it when I heard it and I couldn't really think right about overdubbing on it. So it ended up coming out the way he brought it back."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Dylan had arrived in Nashville with a set of songs similar to the feverish yet pithy compositions that came out of "The Basement Tapes". They would be given an austere sound that he and his producer Bob Johnston thought sympathetic to their content. Johnston recalls that "he was staying in the Ramada Inn down there, and he played me his songs and he suggested we just use bass and guitar and drums on the record. I said fine, but also suggested we add a steel guitar, which is how Pete Drake came to be on that record." The final session did break from the status quo by employing Pete Drake on the final two recordings. Cut between 9pm and 12 midnight, "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "Down Along the Cove" would be the only two songs featuring Drake's light pedal steel guitar.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: "John Wesley Harding" was Dylan's last LP to be issued simultaneously in both monophonic (CL 2804) and stereophonic (CS 9604) formats. By the middle of the following year, most of Dylan's LPs would be released solely in stereophonic.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: On November 1, 2019, Dylan released several new outtakes from this album and "Nashville Skyline" on "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 15: Travelin’ Thru 1967–1969."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The cover photograph of "John Wesley Harding" shows a squinting Dylan flanked by brothers Luxman and Purna Das, two Bengali Bauls, Indian musicians brought to Woodstock by Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman. Behind Dylan is Charlie Joy, a local stonemason and carpenter.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Upon the album's release, rumors circulated that the faces of the Beatles were hidden on the front cover in the knots of the tree. When contacted by "Rolling Stone" magazine in 1968, album cover photographer John Berg "acknowledged their presence but was reluctant to talk about it." However, in a 1995 interview, Berg clarified that although the images seem to resemble the Beatles, this was not done intentionally, nor was he aware of the resemblance until it was pointed out to him after the album's release: "Later on, I got a call from "Rolling Stone" magazine in San Francisco. Someone had discovered little pictures of The Beatles and the hand of Jesus in the tree trunk. Well, I had a proof of the cover on my wall, so I went and turned it upside down and sure enough . . . Hahaha! I mean, if you wanted to see it, you could see it. I was as amazed as anybody."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The album sleeve is also notable for its liner notes, written by Dylan himself. The liner notes tells the story of three kings and three characters (Terry Shute, Frank, and Frank's wife, Vera), incorporating details from the album's songs.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Contradictory release dates have been claimed for "John Wesley Harding". The liner notes to the Dylan mono box states December 17, 1967 as the original date of release. Reproduced in the liner notes to of the Dylan Bootleg Series is an article by Al Aronowitz for "The New York Times", date stamped December 23, 1967, in which he states that "John Wesley Harding" would be released "within the next two weeks". Original CD editions from the 1980s and 1990s have the copyright year of 1968. The January 20 issue of "Billboard" reported on the "blockbuster response" to the LP, saying: "In stores less than a week, the record is reported to have sold more than 250,000 copies."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: In the February 3, 1968 issue of "Melody Maker", the album was reviewed and announced for release in Britain on February 23. It first charted there on March 2, at number 25, before achieving a run of 13 weeks at number 1.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The album was re-released as one of the 15 Dylan titles remastered for Hybrid SACD on September 16, 2003, and was reissued again as part of "The Original Mono Recordings" on October 10, 2010.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: "I asked Columbia to release it with no publicity and no hype, because this was the season of hype," Dylan said. Clive Davis urged Dylan to pull a single, but even then Dylan refused, preferring to maintain the album's low-key profile.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: In a year when psychedelia dominated popular culture, the agrarian-themed "John Wesley Harding" was seen as reactionary. Critic Jon Landau wrote in "Crawdaddy!" magazine, "For an album of this kind to be released amidst "Sgt. Pepper", "Their Satanic Majesties Request", "After Bathing at Baxter's", somebody must have had a lot of confidence in what he was doing… Dylan seems to feel no need to respond to the predominate trends in pop music at all. And he is the only major pop artist about whom this can be said."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The critical stature of "John Wesley Harding" has continued to grow. As late as 2000, Clinton Heylin wrote, ""John Wesley Harding" remains one of Dylan's most enduring albums. Never had Dylan constructed an album-as-an-album so self-consciously. Not tempted to incorporate even later basement visions like 'Going to Acapulco' and 'Clothesline Saga,' Dylan managed in less than six weeks to construct his most perfectly executed official collection."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: While legend has it that Dylan recorded "John Wesley Harding" after finishing "The Basement Tapes" sessions with members of the Band, several biographers and discographers have argued that the final reel of basement recordings actually postdates the first "John Wesley Harding" session.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Regardless of when this session actually occurred, the Band did accompany Dylan for at least one performance in the months following "John Wesley Harding". After hearing of Woody Guthrie's passing (two weeks before "John Wesley Harding"s first session), Dylan contacted Harold Leventhal, Guthrie's longtime friend and manager, and extended an early acceptance to any invitation for any memorial show that might be planned. The memorial came on January 20, 1968, with a pair of shows at New York's Carnegie Hall. Sharing the bill with his folk contemporaries like Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, and Guthrie's son, Arlo, Dylan gave his first public performances in twenty months, backed by the Band (billed then as the Crackers). They played only three songs ("Grand Coulee Dam", "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt", and "I Ain't Got No Home"), and it would be another eighteen months before Dylan would again perform in concert.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: As 1967 came to a close, Dylan's lifestyle became more stable. His wife, Sara, had given birth to their daughter, Anna, earlier that summer. He had reconciled with his estranged parents. A long contract negotiation ended in a lucrative new deal, allowing Dylan to stay with Columbia Records. While the media would never lose interest, Dylan maintained a low enough profile that kept him out of the spotlight.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: After his appearance at Woody Guthrie's memorial concert, 1968 would see little, if any, musical activity from Bob Dylan. His songs continued to be a major presence, appearing on landmark albums by Jimi Hendrix, the Byrds, and the Band, but Dylan himself would not release or perform any additional music. There was very little songwriting activity, as well.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: "One day I was half-stepping, and the lights went out," Dylan would recall ten years later. "And since that point, I more or less had amnesia… It took me a long time to get to do consciously what I used to be able to do unconsciously."


title: John Wesley Harding

text: Around this time, there were also major changes in Dylan's private life: his father died from a heart attack, prompting Dylan to return to Hibbing to attend the funeral. Shortly afterwards, on July 30, 1968, Sara gave birth to their third child, Samuel Isaac Abram.


title: John Wesley Harding

text: The track durations cited here are those of the remastered version released September 16, 2003, and re-released June 1, 2004. Previous versions differ. All songs are written by Bob Dylan.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as "America's Number One Song Stylist", his other nicknames include "Mr. Rhythm", "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils". His hits included "That's My Desire", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Mule Train", "Jezebel", "High Noon", "I Believe", "Hey Joe!", "The Kid's Last Fight", "Cool Water", "Rawhide", and "You Gave Me a Mountain".


title: Frankie Laine

text: He sang well-known theme songs for many Western film soundtracks, including "", "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", and "Blazing Saddles", although his recordings were not charted as a country & western. Laine sang an eclectic variety of song styles and genres, stretching from big band crooning to pop, western-themed songs, gospel, rock, folk, jazz, and blues. He did not sing the soundtrack song for "High Noon", which was sung by Tex Ritter, but his own version (with somewhat altered lyrics, omitting the name of the antagonist, Frank Miller) was the one that became a bigger hit. He also did not sing the theme to another show he is commonly associated with—"Champion the Wonder Horse" (sung by Mike Stewart)—but released his own, subsequently more popular, version.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine's enduring popularity was illustrated in June 2011 when a TV-advertised compilation called "Hits" reached No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart. The accomplishment was achieved nearly 60 years after his debut on the UK chart, 64 years after his first major U.S. hit and four years after his death.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913, to Giovanni and Cresenzia LoVecchio (née Salerno). His Cook County, Illinois, birth Certificate, No. 14436, was already Americanized at the time of his birth, with his name written as "Frank Lovecchio," his mother as "Anna Salerno," and his father as "John Lovecchio," with the "V" lower case in each instance, except in the "Reported by" section with "John Lo Vecchio (father)" written in. His parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily, to Chicago's Near West Side, in "Little Italy," where his father worked at one time as the personal barber for gangster Al Capone. Laine's family appears to have had several organized crime connections, and young Francesco was living with his grandfather when the latter was killed by rival gangsters.


title: Frankie Laine

text: The eldest of eight children, Laine grew up in the Old Town neighborhood (first at 1446 N. North Park Avenue and later at 331 W. Schiller Street) and got his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception's elementary school across the street from the North Park Avenue home. He later attended Lane Technical High School, where he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. He realized he wanted to be a singer when he missed time in school to see Al Jolson's current talking picture, "The Singing Fool". Jolson would later visit Laine when both were filming pictures in 1949, and at about this time, Jolson remarked that Laine was going to put all the other singers out of business.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Even in the 1920s, his vocal abilities were enough to get him noticed by a slightly older "in crowd" at his school, who began inviting him to parties and to local dance clubs, including Chicago's Merry Garden Ballroom. At 17, he sang before a crowd of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom to such applause that he ended up performing five encores on his first night. Laine was giving dance lessons for a charity ball at the Merry Garden when he was called to the bandstand to sing:


title: Frankie Laine

text: Soon I found myself on the main bandstand before this enormous crowd, Laine recalled. I was really nervous, but I started singing 'Beside an Open Fireplace,' a popular song of the day. It was a sentimental tune and the lyrics choked me up. When I got done, the tears were streaming down my cheeks and the ballroom became quiet. I was very nearsighted and couldn't see the audience. I thought that the people didn't like me.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Some of his other early influences during this period included Enrico Caruso, Carlo Buti, and especially Bessie Smith—a record of whose somehow wound up in his parents' collection:


title: Frankie Laine

text: I can still close my eyes and visualize its blue and purple label. It was a Bessie Smith recording of 'The Bleeding Hearted Blues,' with 'Midnight Blues' on the other side. The first time I laid the needle down on that record I felt cold chills and an indescribable excitement. It was my first exposure to jazz and the blues, although I had no idea at the time what to call those magical sounds. I just knew I had to hear more of them! — Frankie Laine


title: Frankie Laine

text: Another singer who influenced him at this time was falsetto crooner, Gene Austin. Laine worked after school at a drugstore that was situated across the street from a record store that continually played hit records by Gene Austin over their loudspeakers. He would swab down the windows in time to Austin's songs. Many years later, Laine related the story to Austin when both were guests on the popular television variety show "Shower of Stars". He would also co-star in a film, "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder", with Austin's daughter, Charlotte.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Shortly after graduating from high school, Laine signed on as a member of The Merry Garden's marathon dance company and toured with them, working dance marathons during the Great Depression (setting the world record of 3,501 hours with partner Ruthie Smith at Atlantic City's Million Dollar Pier in 1932). Still billed as Frank LoVecchio, he would entertain the spectators during the fifteen-minute breaks the dancers were given each hour. During his marathon days, he worked with several up-and-coming entertainers, including Rose Marie, Red Skelton, and a 14-year-old Anita O'Day, for whom he served as a mentor (as noted by Laine in a 1998 interview by David Miller).


title: Frankie Laine

text: Other artists whose styles began to influence Laine at this time were Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong (as a trumpet player), Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, and, later, Nat "King" Cole. Laine befriended Cole in Los Angeles, when the latter's career was just beginning to gain momentum. Cole recorded a song, "It Only Happens Once", that fledgling songwriter Laine had composed. They remained close friends throughout the remainder of Cole's life, and Laine was one of the pall bearers at Cole's funeral.


title: Frankie Laine

text: His next big break came when he replaced Perry Como in the Freddy Carlone band in Cleveland in 1937; Como made a call to Carlone about Laine. Como was another lifelong friend of Laine's, who once lent Laine the money to travel to a possible gig.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine's rhythmic style was ill-suited to the sweet sounds of the Carlone band, and the two soon parted company. Success continued to elude Laine, and he spent the next 10 years "scuffling"; alternating between singing at small jazz clubs on both coasts and a series of jobs, including those of a bouncer, dance instructor, used car salesman, agent, synthetic leather factory worker, and machinist at a defense plant. It was while working at the defense plant during the Second World War that he first began writing songs ("It Only Happens Once" was written at the plant). Often homeless during his "scuffling" phases, he hit the lowest point of his career, when he was sleeping on a bench in Central Park.


title: Frankie Laine

text: I would sneak into hotel rooms and sleep on the floor. In fact, I was bodily thrown out of 11 different New York hotels. I stayed in YMCAs and with anyone who would let me flop. Eventually I was down to my last four cents, and my bed became a roughened wooden bench in Central Park. I used my four pennies to buy four tiny Baby Ruth candy bars and rationed myself to one a day. — Frankie Laine


title: Frankie Laine

text: He changed his professional name to Frankie Laine in 1938, upon receiving a job singing for the New York City radio station WINS. The program director, Jack Coombs, thought that "LoVecchio" was "too foreign sounding, and too much of a mouthful for the studio announcers," so he Americanized it to "Lane", an homage to his high school. Frankie added the "i" to avoid confusion with a girl singer at the station who went by the name of Frances Lane. It was at this time that Laine got unknown songbird Helen O'Connell her job with the Jimmy Dorsey band. WINS, deciding that they no longer needed a jazz singer, dropped him. With the help of bandleader Jean Goldkette, he got a job with a sustainer (non-sponsored) radio show at NBC. As he was about to start, Germany attacked Poland, and all sustainer broadcasts were pulled off the air in deference to the needs of the military.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine next found employment in a munitions plant, at a salary of $150.00 a week. He quit singing for what was perhaps the fifth or sixth time of his already long career. While working at the plant, he met a trio of girl singers, and became engaged to the lead singer. The group had been noticed by Johnny Mercer's Capitol Records, and convinced Laine to head out to Hollywood with them as their agent.


title: Frankie Laine

text: In 1943, he moved to California, where he sang in the background of several films, including "The Harvey Girls", and dubbed the singing voice for an actor in the Danny Kaye comedy "The Kid from Brooklyn". It was in Los Angeles in 1944 that he met and befriended disc jockey Al Jarvis and composer/pianist Carl T. Fischer, the latter of whom was to be his songwriting partner, musical director, and piano accompanist until his death in 1954. Their songwriting collaborations included "I'd Give My Life," "Baby, Just For Me," "What Could Be Sweeter?," "Forever More," and the jazz standard "We'll Be Together Again."


title: Frankie Laine

text: When the war ended, Laine soon found himself "scuffling" again, and was eventually given a place to stay by Jarvis. Jarvis also did his best to help promote the struggling singer's career, and Laine soon had a small, regional following. In the meantime, Laine would make the rounds of the bigger jazz clubs, hoping that the featured band would call him up to perform a number with them. In late 1946, Hoagy Carmichael heard him singing at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, and this was when success finally arrived. Not knowing that Carmichael was in the audience, Laine sang the Carmichael-penned standard "Rockin' Chair" when Slim Gaillard called him up to the stage to sing. This eventually led to a contract with the newly established Mercury records. Laine and Carmichael would later collaborate on a song, "Put Yourself in My Place, Baby".


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine cut his first record in 1944, for a fledgling company called "Bel-Tone Records." The sides were called "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", (an uptempo number not to be confused with the Frank Sinatra recording of the same name) and a wartime propaganda tune entitled "Brother, That's Liberty", though the records failed to make much of an impression. The label soon folded, and Laine was picked up by Atlas Records, a "race label" that initially hired him to imitate his friend Nat "King" Cole. Cole would occasionally "moonlight" for other labels, under pseudonyms, while under contract to Capitol, and as he had previously recorded some sides for Atlas, they reasoned that fans would assume that "Frankie Laine" was yet another pseudonym for "Cole".


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine cut his first two numbers for Atlas in the King mode, backed by R&B artist Johnny Moore's group, The Three Blazers which featured Charles Brown and Cole's guitarist (from "The King Cole Trio"), Oscar Moore. The ruse worked and the record sold moderately well, although limited to the "race" market. Laine cut the remainder of his songs for Atlas in his own style, including standards such as "Roses of Picardy" and "Moonlight in Vermont".


title: Frankie Laine

text: It was also at this time that he recorded a single for Mercury Records: "Pickle in the Middle with the Mustard on Top" and "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)." He appears only as a character actor on the first side, which features the comedic singing of Artie Auerbach (a.k.a., "Mr. Kitzel") who was a featured player on the Jack Benny radio show. In it, Laine plays a peanut vendor at a ball game and can be heard shouting out lines like "It's a munchy, crunchy bag of lunchy!" The flip side features Laine, and is a jazzy version of an old standard done as a rhythm number. It was played by Laine's friend, disc jockey Al Jarvis, and gained the singer a small West Coast following.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Even after his discovery by Carmichael, Laine still was considered only an intermission act at Billy Berg's. His next big break came when he dusted off a fifteen-year-old song that few people remembered in 1946, "That's My Desire". Laine had picked up the song from songstress June Hart a half a dozen years earlier, when he sang at the College Inn in Cleveland. He introduced "Desire" as a "new" song—meaning new to his repertoire at Berg's—but the audience mistook it for a new song that had just been written. He ended up singing it five times that night. After that, Laine quickly became the star attraction at Berg's, and record company executives took note.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine soon had patrons lining up to hear him sing "Desire"; among them was R&B artist Hadda Brooks, known for her boogie woogie piano playing. She listened to him every night, and eventually cut her own version of the song, which became a hit on the "harlem" charts. "I liked the way he did it" Brooks recalled; "he sings with soul, he sings the way he feels."


title: Frankie Laine

text: He was soon recording for the fledgling Mercury label, and "That's My Desire" was one of the songs cut in his first recording session there. It quickly took the No. 3 spot on the R&B charts, and listeners initially thought Laine was black.


title: Frankie Laine

text: The record also made it to the No. 4 spot on the Mainstream charts. Although it was quickly covered by many other artists, including Sammy Kaye who took it to the No. 2 spot, it was Laine's version that became the standard.


title: Frankie Laine

text: "Desire" became Laine's first Gold Record, and established him as a force in the music world. He had been over $7,000 in debt, on the day before he recorded this song." His first paycheck for royalties was over five times this amount. Laine paid off all of his debts except one—fellow singer Perry Como refused to let Laine pay him back, and would kid him about the money owed for years to come. The loan to Laine during the time when both men were still struggling singers was one of the few secrets Como kept from his wife, Roselle, who learned of it many years later. A series of hit singles quickly followed, including "Black and Blue", "Mam'selle", "Two Loves Have I", "Shine", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Monday Again", and many others.


title: Frankie Laine

text: A clarion-voiced singer with much style, able to fill halls without a microphone, and one of the biggest hit-makers of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Laine had more than 70 charted records, 21 gold records, and worldwide sales of over 100 million records. Originally a rhythm and blues influenced jazz singer, Laine excelled at virtually every music style, eventually expanding to such varied genres as popular standards, gospel, folk, country, western/Americana, rock 'n' roll, and the occasional novelty number. He was also known as Mr. Rhythm for his driving jazzy style.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine was the first and biggest of a new breed of singers who rose to prominence in the post–World War II era. This new, raw, emotionally charged style seemed at the time to signal the end of the previous era's singing styles and was, indeed, a harbinger of the rock 'n' roll music that was to come. As music historian Jonny Whiteside wrote:In the Hollywood clubs, a new breed of performers laid down a baffling hip array of new sounds...Most important of all these, though, was Frankie Laine, a big lad with 'steel tonsils' who belted out torch blues while stomping his size twelve foot in joints like Billy Berg's, Club Hangover and the Bandbox...Laine's intense vocal style owed nothing to Crosby, Sinatra, or Dick Haymes. Instead he drew from Billy Eckstine, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, and with it Laine had sown the seeds from which an entire new perception and audience would grow...Frank Sinatra represented perhaps the highest flowering of a quarter century tradition of crooning but suddenly found himself an anachronism. First Frankie Laine, then Tony Bennett, and now Johnnie (Ray), dubbed 'the Belters' and 'the Exciters,' came along with a brash vibrancy and vulgar beat that made the old bandstand routine which Frank meticulously perfected seem almost invalid.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Frank's style was very innovative, which was why he had such difficulty with early acceptance. He would bend notes and sing about the chordal context of a note rather than to sing the note directly, and he stressed each rhythmic downbeat, which was different from the smooth balladeer of his time.


title: Frankie Laine

text: His 1946 recording of "That's My Desire" remains a landmark record signaling the end of both the dominance of the big bands and the crooning styles favored by contemporary Dick Haymes and others. Often called the first of the blue-eyed soul singers, Laine's style cleared the way for many artists who arose in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including Kay Starr, Tony Bennett, and Johnnie Ray.


title: Frankie Laine

text: I think that Frank probably was one of the forerunner of...blues, of...rock 'n' roll. A lot of singers who sing with a passionate demeanor—Frank was and is definitely that. I always used to love to mimic him with 'That's...my...desire.' And then later Johnnie Ray came along that made all of those kind of movements, but Frank had already done them. – Patti Page


title: Frankie Laine

text: Throughout the 1950s, Laine enjoyed a second career singing the title songs over the opening credits of Hollywood films and television shows, including "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", "", "Bullwhip", and "Rawhide". His rendition of the title song for Mel Brooks's 1974 hit movie "Blazing Saddles" won an Oscar nomination for Best Song, and on television, Laine's featured recording of "Rawhide" for the series of the same name became a popular theme song.


title: Frankie Laine

text: You can't categorize him. He's one of those singers that's not in one track. And yet and still I think that his records had more excitement and life into it. And I think that was his big selling point, that he was so full of energy. You know when you hear his records it was dynamite energy. — Herb Jeffries


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine was a jazz singer in the late 1940s. Accompanied by Carl Fischer and some of the best jazz men in the business, he was singing standards like "By the River Sainte Marie", "Black and Blue", "Rockin' Chair", "West End Blues", "At the End of the Road", "Ain't That Just Like a Woman", "That Ain't Right", "Exactly Like You", "Shine" and "Sleepy Ol' River" on the Mercury label.


title: Frankie Laine

text: He enjoyed his greatest success after impresario Mitch Miller, who became the A&R man at Mercury in 1948, recognized a universal quality in his voice that led to a succession of chart-topping popular songs, often with a folk or western flavor. Laine and Miller became a formidable hit-making team whose first collaboration, "That Lucky Old Sun", became the number one song in the country three weeks after its release. It was also Laine's fifth Gold record. "That Lucky Old Sun" was something new to the musical scene in 1949: a folk spiritual which, as interpreted by Laine, became both an affirmation of faith and a working man's wish to bring his earthly sufferings to an end.


title: Frankie Laine

text: The song was knocked down to the number two position by Laine and Miller's second collaboration, "Mule Train", which proved an even bigger hit, making Laine the first artist to hold the Number One and Two positions simultaneously. "Mule Train", with its whip cracks and echo, has been cited as the first song to use an "aural texture" that "set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock."


title: Frankie Laine

text: "Mule Train" represents a second direction in which Laine's music would be simultaneously heading under the guidance of Mitch Miller: as the voice of the great outdoors and the American West. "Mule Train" is a slice of life in the mid-19th century West in which the contents of the packages being delivered by the mule train provide a snapshot into frontier life: "There's some cotton, thread and needles for the folks a-way up yonder/A shovel for a miner who left his home to wander/Some rheumatism pills for the settlers in the hills."


title: Frankie Laine

text: The collaboration producing a run of top forty hits that lasted into the early years of the rock and roll era. Other hits included "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Stars and Stripes Forever", "The Cry of the Wild Goose", "Swamp Girl", "Satan Wears a Satin Gown", and "Music, Maestro Please".


title: Frankie Laine

text: "Shine", written in 1910 by Cecil Mack (R.C. McPherson), a ground-breaking African-American songwriter and publisher, was believed to be based on a real-life friend of vaudevillian George Walker, who was with him during the New York City race riots of 1900. The song takes what was then an ethnic slur, "shine", and turns it into something to be proud of. It had been a hit for Laine's idol Louis Armstrong, who would cover several of Laine's hits as well.


title: Frankie Laine

text: "Satan Wears a Satin Gown" is the prototype of another recurring motif in Laine's "oeuvre", the "Lorelei" or "Jezebel" song (both of which would be the titles of later Laine records). The song, which has a loosely structured melody that switches in tone and rhythm throughout, was pitched to Laine by a young song plugger, Tony Benedetto, who would later go on to achieve success as Tony Bennett. Laine recognized the younger singer's talent, and gave him encouragement.


title: Frankie Laine

text: "Swamp Girl" is another entry with the "Lorelei"/"Jezebel" motif in the Laine songbook. In this decidedly gothic tale of a ghostly female spirit who inhabits a metaphorical "swamp", the "femme fatale" attempts to lure the singer to his death, calling "Come to the deep where your sleep is without a dream." The swamp girl is voiced (in an obligato) by coloratura Loulie Jean Norman, who would later go on to provide a similar vocal for the theme song of the television series "". The coloratura contrasts well with Laine's rough, masculine voice, and disembodied female voices would continue to appear in the background of many of his records, to great effect.


title: Frankie Laine

text: "The Cry of the Wild Goose" would be Laine's last number one hit on the American charts. It was written by folksinger Terry Gilkyson, of The Easy Riders fame. Gilkyson would write many more songs for Laine over the next decade, and he and The Easy Riders would back him on the hit single, "Love Is a Golden Ring". "The Cry of the Wild Goose" falls into the "voice of the great outdoors" category of Laine songs, with the opening line of its chorus, "My heart knows what the wild goose knows", becoming a part of the American lexicon.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine's influence on today's music can be clearly evidenced in his rendition of the Hoagy Carmichael standard, "Georgia on My Mind." Laine's slow, soulful version was a model for the iconic remake by Ray Charles a decade later. Charles would follow up "Georgia" with remakes of other Frankie Laine hits, including "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "That Lucky Old Sun." (Elvis Presley also remade several of Laine's hits, and his early influence on The Beatles has been well documented.)


title: Frankie Laine

text: He was my kind of guy. He was very dramatic in his singing...and you must remember that in those days there were no videos so you had to depend on the image that the record made in the listener's ears. And that's why many fine artists were not good record sellers. For instance, Lena Horne. Fabulous artist but she never sold many records till that last album of hers. But she would always sell out the house no matter where she was. And there were others who sold a lot of records but couldn't get to first base in personal appearances, but Frankie had it both. — Mitch Miller


title: Frankie Laine

text: But the biggest label of all was Columbia Records, and in 1950 Mitch Miller left Mercury to embark upon his phenomenally successful career as the A&R man there. Laine's contract at Mercury would be up for renewal the following year, and Miller soon brought Laine to Columbia as well. Laine's contract with Columbia was the most lucrative in the industry until RCA bought Elvis Presley's contract five years later.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine began recording for Columbia Records in 1951, where he immediately scored a double-sided hit with the single "Jezebel" (#2)/"Rose, Rose, I Love You" (#3). Other Laine hits from this period include "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)" (#5), "Jealousy (Jalousie)" (#3), "The Girl in the Wood" (#23), "When You're in Love" (#30), "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (with Jo Stafford) (#26), "Your Cheatin' Heart" (#18), "Granada" (#17), "Hey Joe!" (#6), "The Kid's Last Fight" (#20), "Cool Water", "Some Day" (#14), "A Woman in Love" (#19), "Love Is a Golden Ring" (with The Easy Riders) (#10), and "Moonlight Gambler" (#3).


title: Frankie Laine

text: One of the signature songs of the early 1950s, "Jezebel" takes the "Lorelei" motif to its end, with Laine shouting "Jezebel!" at the woman who has destroyed him. In Laine's words, the song uses "flamenco rhythms to whip up an atmosphere of sexual frustration and hatred while a guy berated the woman who'd done him wrong."


title: Frankie Laine

text: "High Noon" was the theme song from the western motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. It had been sung by cowboy star Tex Ritter in the film, but it was Laine's recording that became the big hit. From this point on, Laine would sing the theme songs over the opening credits of many Hollywood and television westerns, becoming so identified with these title songs that Mel Brooks would hire him to sing the theme song for his classic cult film western spoof "Blazing Saddles".


title: Frankie Laine

text: At this time, Laine had become more popular in the United Kingdom than in the US, as many of his hit records in the UK were only minor hits in his native country. Songs like "The Gandy Dancer's Ball", "The Rock of Gibraltar", and "Answer Me, O Lord" were much bigger hits for him abroad. "Answer Me" would later provide the inspiration for Paul McCartney's composition "Yesterday". It was also there that he broke attendance records when appearing at the Palladium, and where he launched his first successful television series (with songstress Connie Haines).


title: Frankie Laine

text: Mitch Miller teamed Laine with many of Mercury and Columbia's biggest artists. He scored hits with Patti Page ("I Love You for That") at Mercury, Doris Day ("Sugarbush"), Jo Stafford ("Hey Good Lookin'", "Gambella (The Gambling Lady)", "Hambone", "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town", "Settin' the Woods on Fire", and many others), Jimmy Boyd ("Tell Me a Story", "The Little Boy and the Old Man"), the Four Lads ("Rain, Rain, Rain") and Johnnie Ray ("Up Above My Head (I Hear Music in the Air)").


title: Frankie Laine

text: Laine scored a total of 39 hit records on the charts while at Columbia, and it is many of his songs from this period that are most readily associated with him. His "Greatest Hits" album, released in 1957, has been a perennial best seller that has never gone out of print. His songs at Columbia included everything from pop and jazz standards, novelties, gospel, spirituals, R&B numbers, country, western, folk, rock 'n' roll, calypso, foreign language, children's music, film and television themes, tangos, light operetta. His vocal style could range anywhere from shouting out lines to rhythm numbers to romantic ballads.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Both in collaboration with Jo Stafford and as a solo artist, Laine was one of the earliest, and most frequent, Columbia artists to bring country numbers into the mainstream. Late in his career, Laine would go on to record two straight country albums ("A Country Laine" and "The Nashville Connection") that would fully demonstrate his ability to inflect multiple levels of emotional nuances into a line or word. Many of his pop-country hits from the early 1950s featured the steel guitar playing of Speedy West (who played a custom built, three-neck, four-pedal model).


title: Frankie Laine

text: His duets with Doris Day were folk-pop adaptations of traditional South African folk songs, translated by folk singer Josef Marais. Marais would also provide Laine and Jo Stafford with a similar translation of a song which Stafford seems to have particularly disliked called "Chow Willy". Although "Sugarbush" brought Laine & Day a gold record, they would never team up again.


title: Frankie Laine

text: In 1953 he set two more records (this time on the UK charts): weeks at No 1 for a song ("I Believe", which held the number one spot for 18 weeks), and weeks at No 1 for an artist in a single year (27 weeks), when "Hey Joe!" and "Answer Me, O Lord" became number one hits as well). In spite of the popularity of rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles, fifty-plus years later, both of Laine's records still hold.


title: Frankie Laine

text: In 1954, Laine gave a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II which he cites as one of the highlights of his career. By the end of the decade, he remained far ahead of Elvis Presley as the most successful artist on the British charts. See the "Chart of All Time" for details. "I Believe" is listed as the second most popular song of all time on the British charts as well.


title: Frankie Laine

text: "I Believe" marked yet another direction for Laine's music, that of the spiritual. A devout Roman Catholic from childhood, Laine would continue to record songs of faith and inspiration throughout his career; beginning with his rocking gospel album with the Four Lads, which, along with the hit song "Rain, Rain, Rain", included renditions of such songs as "Remember Me", "Didn't He Moan", "I Feel Like My Time Ain't Long", and "I Hear the Angels Singing." Other Laine spirituals would include "My Friend", "In the Beginning", "Make Me a Child Again", "My God and I", and "Hey! Hey! Jesus."


title: Frankie Laine

text: In 1953, Laine recorded his first long playing album that was released, domestically, solely as an album (prior to this his albums had been compiled from previously released singles). The album was titled "Mr. Rhythm", as Laine was often known at that time, and featured many jazz-flavored, rhythm numbers similar in style to his work on the Mercury label. The album's songlist was made up of "Great American Songbook" standards. The tracks were "Some Day, Sweetheart", "A Hundred Years from Today", "Laughing at Life", "Lullaby in Rhythm", "Willow, Weep for Me", "My Ohio Home", "Judy" and "After You've Gone." The final number features a rare vocal duet with his accompanist/musical director, Carl Fischer. Paul Weston's orchestra provided the music.


title: Frankie Laine

text: Released as a 10" in 1953, and a 12" in 1954, this album features the talents of Laine, Jo Stafford and bandleader Paul Weston, a Tommy Dorsey alumnus who led one of the top bands of the 1950s, and was the husband of Stafford. The album was a mix of solo recordings and duets by the two stars, and of new and previously released material, including Stafford's hits single, "Make Love to Me", "Shrimp Boats", and "Jambalaya." Laine and Stafford duetted on "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town", and "Basin Street Blues"; and Laine soloed on "New Orleans" (not to be confused with "New Orleans" a.k.a. "The House of the Rising Sun" which Laine later recorded), "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?", and "When It's Sleepy Time Down South", along with a pair of cuts taken from his "Mr. Rhythm" album.


title: Frankie Laine

text: This album featured not only jazz vocals by Laine, but jazz licks on trumpet by a former featured player in the Count Basie orchestra, Buck Clayton, and trombonists J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding, and piano by Sir Charles Thompson. The tracks included several songs that had long been a standard part of the Laine repertoire over the years: "Sposin'", "Baby, Baby, All the Time", and "Roses of Picardy" along with standards such as "Stars Fell on Alabama", "That Old Feeling", and "Taking a Chance on Love". The album proved popular with jazz and popular music fans, and was often cited by Laine as his personal favorite. An improvised tone is apparent throughout, with Laine at one point reminiscing with one of the musicians about the days they performed together at Billy Berg's.


title: Frankie Laine

text: The Four Lads (Bernie Toorish, Jimmy Arnold, Frank Busseri and Connie Codarini) had begun as a Canadian-based gospel group, who first gained fame as the backup singer on Johnnie Ray's early chart-busters ("Cry", "The Little White Cloud that Cried"), but garnered a following of their own with songs such as "The Mocking Bird", and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". The album produced one hit, "Rain! Rain! Rain!", along with tracks such as "Remember Me", "I Feel That My Time Ain't Long", and "Didn't He Moan". The last four tracks were recorded during a later session.