Laura Duncan famously performed a song at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1938 that was adapted from a poem by whom?
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Laura Duncan (American singer) Laura Duncan was an African-American singer, whose performance of the song "Strange Fruit" at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1938 helped bring the song to the notice of singer Billie Holiday, who later performed a powerful rendition of the song.
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Strange Fruit "Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching, about three quarters of them black. The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims. Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.
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You Couldn't Be Cuter "You Couldn't Be Cuter" is a 1938 song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Dorothy Fields.
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New York State of Mind "New York State of Mind" is a song written by Billy Joel which initially appeared on the album "Turnstiles" in 1976. Although it was never a hit song and was never released as a single, it has become a fan favorite and a song that Joel plays regularly in concert. Joel famously played the song at The Concert for New York City, the October 2001 benefit concert for the New York City Fire and Police Departments and the loved ones of families of first responders lost during the terrorist attack on New York City on 9/11. He reprised that theme, playing it during his set at at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 12, 2012, where he changed lyrics to include the likes of "Breezy Point."
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Howl "Howl" is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955, published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled "Howl and Other Poems", and dedicated to Carl Solomon.
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Ariel (poem) "Ariel" is a poem written by the American poet Sylvia Plath. It was written on October 27, 1962, shortly before her death, and published posthumously in the collection "Ariel" in 1965, of which it is the namesake. Despite its ambiguity, it is literally understood to describe an early morning horse-ride towards the rising sun. Scholars and literary critics have applied various methods of interpretation to "Ariel".
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A Foggy Day "A Foggy Day" is a popular song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, introduced by Fred Astaire in the 1937 film "A Damsel in Distress". It was originally titled "A Foggy Day (In London Town)" in reference to the pollution-induced pea soup fogs that were common in London during that period, and is often still referred to by the full title.
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Ode to a Nightingale "Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem by John Keats written either in the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, London or, according to Keats' friend Charles Armitage Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats' house at Wentworth Place, also in Hampstead. According to Brown, a nightingale had built its nest near the house Keats and Brown shared in the spring of 1819. Inspired by the bird's song, Keats composed the poem in one day. It soon became one of his 1819 odes and was first published in "Annals of the Fine Arts" the following July. The poem is one of the most frequently anthologized in the English language.
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Come Rain or Come Shine "Come Rain or Come Shine" is a popular music song written by Harold Arlen, who composed the music, and Johnny Mercer, who wrote the lyrics. The song was written for the musical "St. Louis Woman", and was published in 1946.
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By the Sleepy Lagoon "By the Sleepy Lagoon" is a light orchestral valse serenade by British composer Eric Coates composed in 1930. In 1940, lyrics were added with Coates's approval by Jack Lawrence, and the resultant song "Sleepy Lagoon" became a popular music standard of the 1940s.
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America (poem) "America" is a poem by Allen Ginsberg, written in 1956 while he was in Berkeley, California. It appears in his collection "Howl and Other Poems" published in November 1956.
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Stranger in Paradise (song) "Stranger in Paradise" is a popular song from the musical "Kismet" (1953), and is credited to Robert Wright and George Forrest. Like almost all the music in that show, the melody was taken from music composed by Alexander Borodin (1833–1887), in this case, the "Gliding Dance of the Maidens", from the "Polovtsian Dances" in the opera "Prince Igor" (1890). The song in the musical is a lovers' duet and describes the transcendent feelings that love brings to their surroundings. Later versions were mostly edited to be sung by male solo artists.
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September Song "September Song" is an American pop standard song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical production "Knickerbocker Holiday". After being used in the 1950 film "September Affair", the song has since been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists. It was also used during screen credits in the British television series "May to December", the name of which quotes the opening line of the song.
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Gerontion "Gerontion" is a poem by T. S. Eliot that was first published in 1920. The work relates the opinions and impressions of a gerontic, or elderly man, through a dramatic monologue which describes Europe after World War I through the eyes of a man who has lived the majority of his life in the 19th century. Eliot considered using this already published poem as a preface to "The Waste Land", but decided to keep it as an independent poem. Along with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land", and other works published by Eliot in the early part of his career, '"Gerontion" discusses themes of religion, sexuality, and other general topics of modernist poetry.
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A Question (poem) "A Question" is a poem by Robert Frost, first published in 1942 in "A Witness Tree".
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The Lamp Is Low "The Lamp Is Low" is a popular song of the 1930s. The music was written by Peter DeRose and Bert Shefter, adapted from Pavane pour une infante défunte, a piece by Maurice Ravel. The lyrics were written by Mitchell Parish.
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Carousel (musical) Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play "Liliom", transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that "Carousel" was his favorite of all his musicals.
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Three Guineas Three Guineas is a book-length essay by Virginia Woolf, published in June 1938.
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Pins and Needles Pins and Needles is an idiom revue with a book by Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emmanuel Eisenberg, Charles Friedman, David Gregory, Joseph Schrank, Arnold B. Horwitt, John Latouche, and Harold Rome and music and lyrics by Harold Rome. The title "Pins and Needles" was created by Max Danish, long-time editor of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU)'s newspaper "Justice". It ran on Broadway from 1937 to 1940, was revived in 1978, and produced again in London in 2010 to positive reviews. In 2016, the show ran at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York City, where it was produced by the Steinhardt School at New York University. The revue was also performed in 1938 in the White House for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
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Lenox Avenue Lenox Avenue – also named Malcolm X Boulevard; both names are officially recognized – is the primary north–south route through Harlem in the upper portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. This two-way street runs from Farmers' Gate at Central Park North (110th Street) to 147th Street. Its traffic is figuratively described as "Harlem's heartbeat" by Langston Hughes in his poem "Juke Box Love Song". The IRT Lenox Avenue Line runs under the entire length of the street, serving the New York City Subway's trains .
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Gläns över sjö och strand "Gläns över sjö och strand" are the opening lines for a poem written by Viktor Rydberg, appearing in the 1891 "Vapensmeden". In the novel, the poem has no title. The title "Betlehems stjärna" originally appeared in 1893 when Alice Tegnér published music, turning the poem into a song. The title has also been used for later melodies. Recordings of the song can be found at digital download services such as iTunes and at video-sharing websites.
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Duncan and Brady "Duncan and Brady", also known as "Been on the Job Too Long", "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", or simply "Brady", is a traditional murder ballad about the shooting of a policeman, Brady, by a bartender, Duncan. The song's lyrics stemmed from actual events, involving the shooting of James Brady in the Charles Starkes Saloon in St. Louis, Missouri. Harry Duncan was convicted of the murder, and later executed. Originally recorded by Wilmer Watts & his Lonely Eagles in 1929, it has been recorded numerous times, most famously by Lead Belly, also by Judy Henske, Dave Van Ronk, The Johnson Mountain Boys, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Bob Dylan.