Alabama Song


Alabama Song


The "Alabama Song"—also known as "Moon of Alabama", "Moon over Alabama", and "Whisky Bar"—is an English version of a song written by Bertolt Brecht and translated from German by his close collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann in 1925 and set to music by Kurt Weill for the 1927 play Little Mahagonny. It was reused for the 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and has been recorded by the Doors and David Bowie.

Original version

The "Alabama Song" was written as a German poem and translated into idiosyncratic English for the author Bertolt Brecht by his close collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann in 1925 and published in Brecht's 1927 Home Devotions (German: Hauspostille), a parody of Martin Luther's collection of sermons. It was set to music by Kurt Weill for the 1927 play Little Mahagonny (Mahagonny-Songspiel) and reused for Brecht and Weill's 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), where it is sung by Jenny and her fellow prostitutes in Act I. Although the majority of all three works is in German, the "Alabama Song" retained Hauptmann's broken English lyrics throughout.

Brecht and Weill's version of the song was first performed by the Viennese actress and dancer Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife, in the role of Jessie at the 1927 Baden-Baden Festival's performance of Little Mahagonny. The first recording of the song—by Lenya for the Homocord record label—came out in early 1930 under the title "Alabama-Song"; it was rerecorded the same year for the Ultraphon record label for release with the 1930 Leipzig premiere of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, despite Lenya not being a member of that cast. She continued to perform and record the song throughout her life, including for her 1955 album Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (Lotte Lenya singt Kurt Weill), released in the United States under the title Berlin Theater Songs.

The Doors version

The song was recorded in 1966 by the rock group the Doors, listed as "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)". According to drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger, the song was presented by keyboardist Ray Manzarek to the group during their early years, and due to their dissatisfaction with the melody, they radically changed it. The Doors' cover version combines avant-garde and carnival music influences with psychedelic elements. It was a regular one from their set at the Whisky a Go Go, and Van Morrison reported that he was surprised when he heard the Doors playing it at the venue.

Lead singer Jim Morrison altered the second verse from "Show us the way to the next pretty boy" to "Show me the way to the next little girl", but, on the 1967 Live at the Matrix recording, he sang the original unaltered "next pretty boy". For the Doors' recording, Ray Manzarek also contributed marxophone along with organ and keyboard bass. Manzarek recalled that it was producer Paul Rothchild's idea to provide a marxophone on the track, to which Manzarek ultimately said, "It worked out perfectly, that jingle-jangly sound."

Personnel

Per sources:

  • Jim Morrison – lead and backing vocals
  • Robby Krieger – guitar, backing vocals
  • Ray Manzarek – Vox Continental, keyboard bass, marxophone, backing vocals
  • John Densmore – drums, backing vocals
  • Paul A. Rothchild – backing vocals

David Bowie version

David Bowie, a Brecht fan, performed the song throughout his 1978 Isolar II tour. A live version from the tour, recorded in either Philadelphia on 29 April 1978 or in Boston on 6 May, appeared on the 1991, 2005 and 2017 reissues of the live album Stage. On 2 July 1978, a day after the tour's European leg ended, Bowie recorded a studio version at Tony Visconti's Good Earth Studios in London with his studio band. Pianist Sean Mayes stated that "it had been such a hit on the tour that David wanted to do it as a single." With unconventional key changes, the track "seemed calculated to disrupt any radio programme on which it was lucky enough to get played", in the words of NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray.

Bowie's studio cut of "Alabama Song" was released by RCA Records as a single on 15 February 1980, with the catalogue number RCA BOW 5. Reaching number 23 in the UK, the single featured a fold-out sleeve and was backed by Bowie's new acoustic rendition of "Space Oddity", recorded in December 1979 for The "Will Kenny Everett Make It to 1980?" Show. Discussing the track, biographer Nicholas Pegg calls it "one of the most defiantly uncommercial, discordant and aggressive recordings Bowie ever released". In 2016, Ultimate Classic Rock placed the single at number 84 (out of 119) in a list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best.

Bowie later appeared in a BBC version of Brecht's Baal and released an EP of songs from the play. He subsequently performed "Alabama Song" on his 1990 Sound+Vision and 2002 Heathen tours. The song also appeared on the 1992 Rykodisc reissue of Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), as well as the compilation albums Rare (1982), The Singles Collection (1993), The Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 (2007) and Re:Call 3, part of the A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) box set, in 2017.

Personnel

According to Chris O'Leary:

  • David Bowie – lead and backing vocal
  • Adrian Belew – lead guitar, backing vocal
  • Carlos Alomar – rhythm guitar, backing vocal
  • Simon House – electric violin
  • Sean Mayes – piano, backing vocal
  • Roger Powell – synthesiser
  • George Murray – bass, backing vocal
  • Dennis Davis – drums
  • Tony Visconti – backing vocal

Technical

  • David Bowie – producer
  • Tony Visconti – producer

References in popular culture

  • The Watergate Hotel lobby whisky bar is named after this song.
  • The political commentator Billmon named his blog Whiskey Bar quoting the song. When he closed the comments, his followers created another blog named Moon of Alabama.

Selective list of recorded versions

  • Jazz musicians Eric Dolphy and John Lewis recorded Mack the Knife and Other Berlin Theatre Songs of Kurt Weill, an album of Kurt Weill tunes in 1964. "Alabama Song" was performed by a band consisting of Dolphy on bass clarinet, Lewis on piano, Nick Travis on trumpet, Mike Zwerin on trombone, Richard Davis on double bass, and Connie Kay on drums. The solo order is trombone, piano, and bass clarinet. Zwerin asked Dolphy to "play what [he] felt about Alabama".
  • Bette Midler. The song was included in a medley in her 1977 live show and double album Live at Last.
  • Nina Simone, on her 1987 album Live At Ronnie Scott's, recorded at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in 1984.
  • It was covered by Ralph Schuckett with Richard Butler, Bob Dorough, Ellen Shipley and John Petersen on the tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill.
  • Ute Lemper in 1991: Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill
  • The Young Gods covered it on their 1991 release The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill, with the lyrics "Show us the way to the next little girl".
  • Marianne Faithfull performed this song (along with several other Brecht/Weill songs) live on her 20th Century Blues album released in 1996.
  • David Johansen covered the song on a compilation of Kurt Weill's music entitled September Songs – The Music of Kurt Weill, released in 1997.

See also

  • Other "Alabama" songs
  • Other "Whisky Bar"s

References

Bibliography

  • Carr, Roy; Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record. London: Eel Pie Publishing. ISBN 978-0-380-77966-6.
  • O'Leary, Chris (2019). Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie 1976–2016. London: Repeater. ISBN 978-1-912248-30-8.
  • Pegg, Nicholas (2016). The Complete David Bowie (revised and updated ed.). London: Titan Books. ISBN 978-1-78565-365-0.

Text submitted to CC-BY-SA license. Source: Alabama Song by Wikipedia (Historical)



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