Tuesday, June 23, 2015

"Gone with the Wind" by Max Steiner (cover

All empires are built on slavery.  like this one now, built on sweat-shops and non-living wages. Civil War? resource grab; emancipation? politics. u know the drill.  That's why I play it like that. u can feel the loss.  the reversal of fortune.



"Gone with the Wind" by Max Steiner, series 01 of covers: harmonica solo and guitar-harmonica combo.  This is one of my favorites in my repertoire.  It comes from one of the greatest classics of all time the Gone-with-the-Wind motion picture.  One of the things that established that was the music; almost half of the film was the music.

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Based on a novel about the US pre and post Civil War South, dealing with the topic of reversal of fortune. As all empires, built on slavery, like the one we have now on sweat-shops and non-living wages. What goes around comes around. Sherman razing civilian infrastructure of Georgia to the ground; the people who had prospered by running out the Cherokee earlier in the 19th century in the days of Jackson, history repeating itself in upheaval and catharsis. The music epitomizes that. You can feel it. It's "deserved" because of the attitude but then, those who do the adaptations, like the character Rhett Butler in the story, can make it through it all. So Max was doing a little Beethoven on us and we got a helping of the Viennese genius in this melody. Before we forget it, it's a classic.

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The theme of the epic movie with illustrious performances by Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable. Remember? If you haven't seen the movie, you ought to.

Gable's acting, in particular, was apropos. His "Rhett Butler" described to a tee the late 19th century persona of the adaptive American male much as Clarke's depiction of the cowboy in Skagway, Alaska, the last town of the wild west, in another film. I loved his interpretation of his character's encounter with Jefferson (Soapy) Smith, the mayor, in which he trades his herd of cattle for equipment and a chance to get out of town (out of Skagway; "Murder City").

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A whole new concept in music. Steiner was Viennese, an Austrian berg noted for its a bevy of top notch composers. To hear the whole thing, you have to watch the movie, which is also an audio- visual symphony of two-and-one- half hours of music in a practically 4-hour film.



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