The Sunday Round-Up: 30th June-6th July (20 Years of Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, and the Story Behind Elvis’ ‘Hound Dog’)

Plus, more music history including Kylie Minogue, Jim Morrison, Queen, and Louis Armstrong

Celebrating 20 Years of Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois (released on 4th July 2005)

Topping four ‘Best of 2005’ lists, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois (styled as ‘Sufjan Stevens invites you to: Come on feel the Illinoise’ on the album cover) is an album that not only received widespread critical acclaim but was also his first to make it into the charts. It was the second part to Stevens’ 50-state project that began in 2003 with his third studio album, Michigan.

‘I chose Illinois because it wasn’t a great leap from Michigan, and I feel like there are similar themes, similar cultural idiosyncrasies and characteristics between the two.’¹

The result of a fiercely independent and hugely creative mind with a passion for research, every single one of Illinois’ 21 tracks were written, recorded, engineered, and produced by Stevens.

At recording stage, Stevens was joined by The Illinoisemaker Choir (Tom Eaton, Jennifer Hoover, Katrina Kerns, Beccy Lock, and Tara McDonnell); The String Quartet (Julianne Carney and Rob Moose on violin, Marla Hansen on viola, Maria Bella Jeffers on cello); James McAlister on drums; Craig Montoro on the trumpet, and Matt Morgan, Daniel Smith, Elin Smith, and Shara Worden on backing vocals.

Below, in the words of Sufjan Stevens, and violinist Rob Moose, is the story behind Illinois…

Sufjan Stevens:

‘[The recording and production process] was a little bit complicated, because I don’t think I was expecting to do so much. I had a vision that was very grand and epic, and a lot of times I think the songs I write on the piano lend themselves to more embellished arrangements. Some of the songs started turning into Broadway musicals, with multipart harmonies, and woodwinds and trumpets. I just kind of went crazy, and I had so much time to work on it. I had four months to start writing, and researching, and record everything, so I pretty much used all that time…

I think this is the first record I recorded primarily in one place, and that was a studio in Queens, in Astoria, here in New York. I still used my antiquated 8-track recorder, which is a piece of junk, but that’s because I didn’t want to use an engineer at the studio. I wanted to do everything myself.’²

‘I was going for a kind of a dramatic, Broadway musical style, which was pretty broad; I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to. I wanted it to be a […] kind of historical survey but I didn’t want it to be heavy with information. I didn’t want it to be too political, and I didn’t want it to be too didactic. So I had to somehow monitor everything with kind of a sense of self-discovery and conviction, and an emotional landscape within me personally. That was the overall goal of the record […] I wanted it to be almost like a movie soundtrack, but without the movie.’³

‘It was very strenuous. It was an incredible amount of work, because I was writing it as I was recording it […] There were days when I had no sense of time or reality, and I wasn’t functioning on a practical level, a day-to-day, matter-of-fact level. I was functioning on a supernatural level, in my mind, in my imagination. That was sustained for days and weeks, and sometimes months. It was really exciting. To be in that space that is so personal yet so epic, as well, and so supernatural, I don’t think it’s really healthy for people for long periods of time. It’s very self-consumed. And also self-consuming. But it’s very enjoyable. I relish in the anxiety that comes from these kinds of very overwhelming tasks. For me, it was a real challenge, but I enjoyed it.’⁴

‘[For research] I read fiction by Illinois writers like Carl Sandburg and Saul Bellow, and then I ready some biographies of Mary Todd, Abraham Lincoln. I read this huge boring history book called Frontier Illinois. And then I would just chance upon themes; weird roadside monuments, like the Superman statue in Metropolis, or just strange occurrences in DeKalb, which has a long history of sightings of wild animals that aren’t indigenous - kangaroos and alligators.’⁵

‘Illinois is a projection of my enthusiasm and my imagination for a particular place that was a bit unfamiliar to me. It’s really a fabrication.’⁶

Rob Moose (violinist ) on Illinois…

‘I didn’t know I was playing on a record that would be a record that people talked about. We recorded that in the violist’s living room. I felt really adept at that and thought, How do I find more work like this?’⁷

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Illinois has become an album not only ‘talked about’ but loudly proclaimed as a landmark achievement in songwriting, intricate arrangements and experimentalism. It is, in the words of the Guardian’s Dave Simpson, ‘a remarkable album that manages to pack in a state full of instruments (flugelhorns, choirs) and sounds simultaneously vast yet intimately detailed.’⁸

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The Story Behind Elvis Presley’s ‘Hound Dog’ (recorded on 2nd July 1956)

‘Hound Dog’ was originally written by Jerry Lieberman and Mike Stoller for Willie Mae ‘Big Mama’ Thornton, a Houston based blues singer. Her personality was described by the two writers as ‘brusque and badass.’⁹

Lieberman recalled ‘We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see.’¹⁰

In 1990, Stoller told Rolling Stone ‘[s]he was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of ‘Hound Dog’ and the idea that we wanted her to growl it.’¹¹

Growl it Big Mama Thornton did, and the single reached the top of the rhythm ’n’ blues chart, selling over 500,000 copies.

Three years later, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys covered ‘Hound Dog’, changing the lyrics slightly and singing in the key of C rather than Big Mama’s E flat, and that’s where the 21-year-old Elvis Presley comes in.

Dominic Joseph Fontana, the drummer in Elvis’ backing band, recalled:

‘[We got the idea for the machine gun-like drum fills in ‘Hound Dog’] from a band we saw in Vegas, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. They were doing the song kinda like that. We went out there every night to watch them. [Elvis would] say ‘Let’s go watch that band. It’s a good band!’ That’s where he heard ‘Hound Dog, and shortly thereafter he said ‘Let’s try that song.’ He was always trying things.’¹²

Elvis’ ‘Hound Dog’ was recorded at New York’s RCA Studios. After a total of 31 takes, Elvis and his backing band finally had it with version 28 making the final cut.

Scotty Moore was Elvis’ guitarist. Asked in a 2002 interview about Keith Richards from The Rolling Stones describing the second guitar break on ‘Hound Dog’ sounding like Moore had just took off his guitar, dropped it on the floor, and got the perfect sound, Moore revealed…

‘I don’t know [how I got that sound]. I was actually pissed off to tell ya the truth […] It was just… sometimes in the studio, you do it too many times and you go past that peak. Like, three takes before was really the one you should use. That was it. We had done the thing [‘Hound Dog’]. I think it was printed somewhere that we did it about forty or sixty… I don’t know, give or take. But if someone was counting it off, just a couple notes and we stop, that’s a take […] But I was frustrated for some reason and in the second solo, I just want ‘BLAH’’¹³

Well, the frustration clearly worked its magic, and ‘Hound Dog’, no doubt helped along by Elvis’ controversial hip gyrations, sold around 10 million copies around the world.

The Round-Up (30th June - 6th July)

1st July 2000: Kylie Minogue went to no.1 on the UK Singles Chart with ‘Spinning Around’

‘Spinning Around’ was Kylie Minogue’s first single of the Millennium after a two year break. In the words of Lee Barron, ‘‘Spinning Around’ represented a decisive return to a pop music sound following the ‘indie’ experimentation of [her previous album] Impossible Princess.’¹⁴

‘Spinning Around’ reached no.1 on both the Australian and UK Singles Charts.

Producer, Mike Spencer, said of the song ‘Submerged into the DNA of ‘Spinning Around’ is a band. I recorded it as a band: real drums, real bass, real guitar. And then did it as more of a kind of funk, four-on-the-floor funk house. I was trying to throw it back the other way which seemed to make sense for Kylie as a comeback. And there would also be a sense of nostalgia and a kind of good time, hands in the air moment.’¹⁵

3rd July 1971: Jim Morrison of The Doors was found dead

Jim Morrison died at just 27 years of age in Paris, France, in the early morning of Saturday 3rd July 1971. It wasn’t until 9th July, however, that the Doors’ manager, Bill Siddons, announced the news of his death to the press.

Siddons explained ‘The initial news of his death and funeral was kept quiet because those of us who knew him intimately and loved him as a person wanted to avoid all the notoriety and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.’¹⁶

Morrison was laid to rest in Paris at the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (also the resting place of Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf). According to Siddons, ‘[Morrison] and a friend had been walking through [the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise] a week before, and it seemed perfectly appropriate. Even if he’d died at home in L.A., we might’ve sent him there.’¹⁷

Jim Morrison is remembered as a hugely influential figure in music history. As All Music’s Steve Huey writes, ‘[t]he disturbing, image-rich poeticism of Morrison's lyrics, perfectly supported by the Doors' swirling, eclectic psychedelic rock, have assured him continuing icon status, while his fondness for theatrical shock tactics and nihilistic angst have influenced countless imitators.’¹⁸

6th July 1973: Queen released their debut single, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’

Queen’s debut single, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, was written and composed by Brian May. Discussing the song’s intent, May said…

‘I wasn’t very sure that I was a songwriter, really, I just sort of had this idea, and strangely enough the lyrics for “Keep Yourself Alive” are meant to be kind of a comment, they’re meant to be slightly ironical. Everyone always did think that ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was just a jolly song about how great it is to be alive, but it’s actually more about asking the question ‘is there more to life than this?’ in a sense.’¹⁹

While the song failed to chart, All Music’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote in a retrospective review of Queen’s debut album that ‘the wild, rampaging opener "Keep Yourself Alive," [was] one of their very best songs [on the album]’²⁰

6th July 1971: Louis Armstrong died

On 6th July 1971, Louis Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep at just 69 years of age.

Interred in Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York City, Armstrong’s honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ed Sullivan, Guy Lombardo, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson, David Frost, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and Bobby Hackett.²¹

Prior to his funeral, Armstrong’s body lay in state at the 7th Regiment Armory in Manhattan for two days so that fans could say their final goodbyes.

Louis Armstrong, sometimes nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, is a jazz icon. As Karl Gehrke notes, ‘Armstrong’s influence wasn’t limited to just his fellow trumpeters. All musicians were inspired by his playing. He altered the whole conception of what jazz could be’²².

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Some music-related quotes from musicians born this week:

Debbie Harry (born 1st July 1945)

‘Music does not carry you along. You have to carry it along strictly by your ability to really just focus on that little small kernel of emotion or story.’

Missy Elliott (born 1st July 1971)

‘My first love is writing and producing. So I sometimes put my own stuff off to work on other people’s projects.’

Huey Lewis from Huey Lewis and the News (born 5th July 1950)

‘Well, we were originally called Huey Lewis and the American Express. But on the eve of the release of our first record, our record label, Chrysalis Records, was afraid that we’d be sued by American Express.’

50 Cent (born 6th July 1975)

‘The only thing that I’m scared of is not livin’ up to the expectations of Dr. Dre and Eminem.’

Kate Nash (born 6th July 1987)

‘I find it really easy to write on the bass, because you kind of get straight to the point: you do lyrics and melody without thinking about decorating the song until after you’ve finished it.’

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20191122174331/http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/383

2. https://web.archive.org/web/20191122174331/http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/383

3. https://web.archive.org/web/20191122174331/http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/383

4. https://www.undertheradarmag.com/interviews/throwback_thursday_sufjan_stevens_interview_from_2005/

5. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/oct/28/sufjanstevens.popandrock

6. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303215709/http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6335-sufjan-stevens/

7. https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/rob-moose-interview-arranger-to-indie-stars/

8. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jul/01/popandrock.shopping4

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)

12. https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/interview-djfontana.shtml

13. https://www.scottymoore.net/interview_by_Dave_Schwensen.html

14. http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Barron.pdf

15. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kylie-minogue-spinning-around-20th-anniversary-producer-mike-spencer-interview_uk_5eeb5e4fc5b6946974a7d564

16. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/james-douglas-morrison-poet-dead-at-27-40343/

17. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/james-douglas-morrison-poet-dead-at-27-40343/

18. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jim-morrison-mn0000031022#biography

19. https://brianmay.com/queen-news/2021/03/queen-the-greatest-the-story-begins-keep-yourself-alive-ep-1/#:~:text=The%20song%20was%20written%20and,meant%20to%20be%20slightly%20ironical.

20. https://www.allmusic.com/album/queen-mw0000195392

21. https://www.facebook.com/billowrites/posts/the-honorary-pallbearers-at-louis-armstrongs-funeral-july-1971-were-governor-nel/10151666000514534/

22. https://www.sdpb.org/behind-the-beat/2021-08-05/the-enduring-legacy-of-louis-armstrong