(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Let's chase the clouds away with a celebration of Sesame Street's 50-year-plus musical legacy [1]
[]
Date: 2023-12-25
And here’s a special moment from the 1972 season that reflects what makes “Sesame Street”’s musical legacy so unique and inspiring. It’s Nina Simone singing her song “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” The title comes an autobiographical play based on the writings of her late friend Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote the groundbreaking play “A Raisin in the Sun.”
“Sesame Street” premiered on PBS on Nov. 10, 1969. Its producers made two inspired hires. The first was someone everyone is familiar with—puppeteer Jim Henson, who brought his Muppets to the show: Kermit the Frog, Elmo, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, and company.
The second is less familiar: Raposo, a Harvard-educated, classically trained composer and jazz pianist who became the show’s first musical director. Raposo composed the theme song “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?” He would go on to write 3,000 pieces of varying lengths for the show before his untimely death of lymphoma at age 51 in 1989.
Raposo’s son Nick told southeast Massachusetts newspaper The Standard-Times: “My father always said that children are not stupid people—they’re just little people. I believe it’s this respect for kids, and the music certainly reflects this, that resonated with so many people and continues to resonate to this day.”
Here’s Gladys Knight & the Pips singing a jazzed-up version of the theme song for a 1988 PBS pledge-drive “Sesame Street” special.
Two of Raposo’s songs would go far beyond “Sesame Street” to become American songbook standards covered by many other singers. “Sing,” composed by Raposo in 1971, became the show’s signature song. It was also covered by Barbra Streisand and The Carpenters, whose rather saccharine version peaked at No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 1973.
Chance the Rapper, who has appeared on “Sesame Street,” told The New York Times that he heard “Sing” as a young child and it still inspires him. He said “Sing” “felt like it was a song telling me not only to just be confident and keep going in all ways, but specifically as an artist to this day, it makes me feel like I should be creating.”
And for its 50th anniversary in 2019, the show’s producer, Sesame Workshop, put together a mashup of cast members, Muppets, and celebrities performing “Sing” over the decades, offering a glimpse of just how many different styles of music have been featured.
And then there’s “Bein’ Green,” which Raposo composed in one night during the show’s first season because head writer and producer Jon Stone needed a song for Kermit the Frog. The song was first sung by Henson, the voice of Kermit, who poignantly expressed the difficulty of feeling too uninteresting and not standing out because of his ordinary color.
But the song’s message about getting and being comfortable in your own skin whatever the color took on a whole new meaning about race when the incomparable Lena Horne performed it with Kermit on a 1974 episode.
Raposo was particularly thrilled when his idol Frank Sinatra recorded “Bein’ Green” for his 1971 album “Sinatra & Company.” Sinatra was so impressed with the “Sesame Street” composer that he asked Raposo to write four songs for his 1973 comeback album “Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back,” which ended the singer’s brief retirement.
And then in 1975, Ray Charles turned the song into an anthem of Black pride when he included it on his album “Renaissance” and made it part of his concert repertoire, titling it “It Ain’t Easy Being Green.”
Raposo also composed a memorable tune for another Muppet character. “C Is For Cookie” had its debut in 1971, opening with Cookie Monster standing behind a giant letter C against a black background. But then in 1994, a new over-the-top “Aida”-themed operatic version aired featuring the legendary mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne in an Egyptian setting with a pyramid made of cookies in the background.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/25/2210406/-Let-s-chase-the-clouds-away-with-a-celebration-of-Sesame-Street-s-50-year-plus-musical-legacy?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_4&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
