The New York Aristocrat who Re-Shaped American Music
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
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He also created Jurassic Park, spared no expense!
Spared no expense
Haha!!!!
He was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think if he should.
😂
For some reason I was expecting to hear that he invented the Hammond organ
I was expecting a link to Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes, but his father's side is from Gibraltar.
That would be Laurens Hammond.
I expected that too.
Bless your heart little pootie
There was a John Hays Hammond who was an inventer like Laurens Hammond.
He owned a Castle that was equipped with a Pipe-Organ.
My Dad, a jazz lover used to remark that John H. Hammond Jr. had his dream job. To wit, lover of Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Billie Holliday, and he listened to Ed Beech, Just Jazz.
This is how rich kids should be. Help bolster and fund the reputation of other talented people who are not as well off while making a name for yourself in the process. He couldn't help that he came from a rich family, but from the goodness of his heart he decided to promote these acts who otherwise may have faded into obscurity. It was remarkable for a rich white man of his time to see promise in these black artists and was willing to stubbornly stick to his guns to make sure they were taken care of.
Dylan averaged about an album a year for about 25 years. Then slowed down to about one every 2 years. Now in his 80s, he's slowed down to about one every 3 years, releasing his 40th album in 2023.
That isn't amazing to me. I could create hw61 just mixing a bunch of words together. On the spot here it goes. "He held it high so they would see it was just a lie even though Saint Christopher wanted it more than I"
@@user-kt8dy7pc8n Alright, if you think Dylan's career is so easy, go produce a few dozen albums and win a Nobel Prize for literature. I look forward to hearing the work of someone so amazing they think what he did was child's play.
@@Sam_on_TH-cam I know his music is garbled nonsense.
@@user-kt8dy7pc8n Put up or shut up. You're leaving a lot of money on the line if you don't release 40 albums and win every award that exists for music, including the Nobel which was never previously awarded to a musician.
@Sam_on_TH-cam if you slipped the line I gave into any dylan song on hw61 no one would have thought anything was out of ordinary. Nobody would have said hey that line ruins the song. The guys who think they're cool and deep thinkers would have sung that line with conviction thinking all time , "Dylan. dudes a genius" 😅
Its a shame rich people arent cool like this anymore
Most rich people back then weren't cool like this either. John Henry Hammond Jr. was an exceptional man!
He was a minority in the world of the mega rich his whole life.
There are plenty of cool rich people. I’m a poor boy with money.
To this day, at concerts Bob Dylan is simply introduced as "Columbia Recording Artist Bob Dylan."
So basically, a human (by design a flawed creature, shaped by his environment) did the best he could to use his privilage to fight for what he thought was right. That isn't a complicated legacy. It's just...legacy. He didn't apologize for who he is and did a lot of good with it.
@@elenymm
This interpretation is mine as well. If you compare what Hammond did with his wealth to anyone else in his tax bracket, he looks like a saint. Call it the "eye of a needle" curve.
That does not uncomplicate his legacy. The material conditions that allowed him to do all that are precisely what complicates it.
Being an enormous fan of SRV, I was aware of the heritage that Hammond left for the world of music.
For better or worse, wealth provides such enormous advantages that the wealthy often have no conception of things the poor or just "Not immensely rich" have to put up with. But that someone from such a background really did try to counter some of those things for PoC is still worthy of applause.
You have to remember something, humans are not characters in a book, we are complex. For many of our goods we have evils. It doesn't take away from someone's accomplishments. If you remove someone that is unfavorable, you lose everything and are cheated.
I'd heard his name as a producer, had no idea how deep his involvement was. I'm glad you presented the good & the bad - most humans aren't saints (a critical eye on Gandhi has some pretty uncomfortable truths for example) - people are complex and attempts at vilification or hagiography will always fall short.
Yeah, he was a pedo.
I saw the title and thought for a sec it would be about Jurassic Park. Great video though, about a topic I was largely unaware of.
A great essay! Thank you. I never realized Hammond was a Vanderbilt. That means he's related to Anderson Cooper. What a small world.
A small world called Manhattan.
I have heard of him. He helped Billie Holliday.
The world gets smaller where's there's more money
Related to Hammond's progressive attitude toward race, he also worked as a journalist, publicizing the obvious injustices occurring in the Scottsboro Boys trial.
One of the social benefits of Hammond being so ridiculously wealthy is that he rarely asked for a salary for his work, instead asking only for total freedom in how he did his job. And when the FBI put him under surveillance, it didn't really matter to him. He was too rich to be intimidated.
"too rich to be intimidated" doesn't say much for your faith in USA egalitarianism. as per the 14th Amendment.
@@flamencoprof
Ha ha ha! Of course I don't
@@RobertJRoman Don't what?
@@flamencoprof
I don't have faith that we have achieved a class-free egalitarian paradise where the downtrodden have the same access to the gears of power as the super-wealthy.
@@flamencoprof The US is a crapitalist oligarchy, not a democracy let alone free society
I messaged you years ago suggesting this guy! Super excited to see you covering him!
Hammond also signed Leonard Cohen to Columbia, and was going to produce his first album, but it didn't happen, and it was produced by John Simon instead.
Thank you for a great summary of Hammond's amazing legacy. Warts and all! The Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues album that I bought back in the 1970s changed my life. You can hear the early rumblings of Rock and Roll in it. Because of John Hammond it exists.
I never heard about him before, thanks!
Gloria's jeans were pretty good.
My dad played swing jazz too, trumpet. He was with Woody Herman and Ben Webster.
I really love the Benny Goodman quartet. I've got records from Benny and the three other members. Also have records of the Sextet with Charlie Christian.
I can't stand the idea some people have that Hammond was just a kind of wealthy white dilletante indulging his interest in music and so exploiting black music and musicians. Hammond was a rare (maybe unique) example of a person whose wealth and position didn't isolate him into all the accepted attitudes, but instead freed him to think and act for himself. When you grow up as a Vanderbilt, someone who can look down at the Rockerfellers and Fords as 'those nouveau-riche people,' you should have no fear of the criticism of others, and Hammond did not. That left him free to explore, promote, and celebrate music and musicians that so many others would ignore or denigrate. Obviously he didn't do it for money (he already had more of that than anyone else), so it must have been for love.
Nice documentary, but you missed his deep involvement in recording many important 30's jazz musicians and others for a special series of 78's recorded in New York underwritten by Hammond and English Columbia (some selected titles were subsequently issued in the US on the faltering Columbia label). He also wrote for the British paper Melody Maker during that time. He later spent some time at Vanguard Records during the time away from Columbia Records.
My grandfather went to yale around that time, apparently they (students in general, not John Hammond) were classist in the school.
Babe wake up, polyphonic posted.
3:06 Not to mention he inspired the "Supreme Leader" haircut...
😂
I still have Stevie Ray Vaughn's debut album/LP. from 1982.The back photo features Stevie, Double Trouble and John Hammond Sr.. Once in the mid 1990's when I lived on the Big Island, Hilo Hawaii, John Hammond jr. played at a local small club. I was at that performance.
Great video! RIP Jerry Miller 1943-2024
nice voice, well developed tone and very professional presentation.
Can you do a video about Prince?
Is that even legal?
😉
It was rumoured that he was about to discover Jimi Hendrix, but the day he went to see him play, Jimi had just flown to England
What a wonderful way to learn how there is a thread weaving a link between all of the musical artists that my dad loved, and that then I loved… My dad, Scottish young man transplanted to Columbia South America, came in the 40s to do graduate school in architecture Columbia university… And he discovered big band, jazz but he would often figure out how to bartend to be able to see the performances… Then discovered cabaret… And I heard all those recordings growing up Goodman… Etc. Lena Horne.. Ella .. Sarah Vaughan etc Dylan was my generation … and it’s all woven via Hammond
.. amazing .. with respect to the negative aspects of the gentlemen, I don’t think there’s anybody, unless they are God, doesn’t have faults in their character… But what matters, to me, at least is the overall arch of what they have done .. thank you
Ralph Peer might be someone with more impact, he is credited as recording both the first blues record and country record, discovering people such as the Carter Family and Jimmy Rogers
The Carter Family were essentially the trope codifiers of what would become known as country music. Sure, others had pioneered those musical elements before, but the Carters were the first to present it to wider audience and really solidify the genre in the listening public's consciousness.
Thanks!
Clarence Avant would be a great guy to talk about with his impact on R&B. (Just don’t plagiarise the Netflix documentary about him.)
Walking that line wit the finesse of a cat. not to sweet not to sour. Just right! Thanks
Funny how this is seen as "nurturing talent" but with foreign poc they get called fake and manufactured
Also the father of probably the best blues singers of his generation, the most wonderful John Hammond .
Another great video. So good...
I am not criticizing anyone's love of Bob Dylan; growing up I was more impressed by the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein. On the singer-songwriter front I've been more moved personally by the songs of Paul Simon. There are many many important songwriters from Warren Zevon to David Byrne out there worthy of our notice and even gratitude.
Incredible report. Thanks.
13:24 and to think that isn’t even the worst thing Hammond said about Duke Ellington and his work. In 1935, Duke’s mother (and the center of his life), Daisy Ellington, died of cancer. He was devastated. And as part of coping with the grief he felt, he wrote a 13 minute piece called “Reminiscing In Tempo” as a tribute to her.
It was largely panned by critics, but John Hammond’s scathing review was by far the worst. He had the nerve to say of *Duke Ellington* of all people that “he had shut his eyes to the abuses heaped upon his race and his original class.” It’s things like this that reek of a sort of white savior complex that leftists like him (then as now) are riddled with.
Thanks For the vid, I like your neutral stance. Dose anyone know if Albert Hammond JR of the Strokes related??
That was interesting. Thanks!
Excellent video
The more you pay attention to simple pop music, the more you realize that it's the producer that has the true talent 90% of the time, has the longest and most varied career. You know. Because, unlike most pop performers, they usually they can actually read music and command a mixing board. They flesh out simple songs into hits
Most pop "artists" merely fit the suit and lack musical sophistication beyond an ability to sing or pose or play an instrument at a simpler level than that required by Jazz and Classical. There are many, many more talented performers that aren't as successful simply because they are as photogenic - the primary requirement of manufactured pop music success.
"Only America takes pop music this seriously. To the rest of the world, it's just pop music." -Elvis Costello, genuinely talented musician and producer.
I dunno, Korea seems to take pop music very seriously... The K-Pop industry is even more manufactured and appearance-centric than American pop.
We also love Doritos
you lost me with elvis costello .......!
Is Albert Hammond Jr. related to him?
Very cool video!
I can't believe I'd never heard of this man, great story
I think that citing Prince won't help your narrative, he claims that Lincoln is a racist in the same song.
Abraham Lincoln was a racist. His family owned slaves, and when addressing African-Americans as a whole, he famously said "I will only ever see you as a slave, and then I will free you".
you’ve never studied history at all huh? 😂
@@poindextertunes using the term racist to define both the KKK and the man who issued the Emancipation Proclamation is somewhat limited. Isnt it?
Oh, is that how you pronounce Sidney Behcet's name?
Still not sure.😮
I mean, you could look at it as a rich white guy exploiting those with less social standing by their skin color .. but in general, the color of your skin in the 30's - 60's didn't matter to management, producers, etc .. you were going to be exploited. Look what Colonel Tom Parker did to Elvis, Murray Wilson did to his own sons and family, Don Arden with Black Sabbath, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Small Faces, etc .. Even the Beatles couldn't escape that when they lost Brian Epstein and ended up with Allen Klein.
I wish you would say that to ppl of color.
I wish I could watch you say that to their faces and see what they think.
There is some evidence I believe that he took advantage of the black people he signed. Maybe he was into integrating the scene because they were easy to sign cheap. For someone as rich as himself, this would especially look bad if true.
Fascinating!
Thought it would be Cole Porter, but he's from Indiana.
A Couple of John Hammond's Blind Spots were Bebop and he thought Bob Dylan was better than Lonnie Johnson.
t.i.l. prince said hammond & not hancock
"And while it's kind of unclear whether his ancestors owned slaves or not..." Oh, shut up.
The music industry was deeply exploitative of musicians of all colours. To ascribe artistic criticism racism without any evdence is an act of racism.
*YES*
Sounds like he was the Clive Davis of his time. That’s not a compliment
Because he is related to the Vanderbilt family, I wonder what his relation is to Anderson Cooper? Perhaps distant cousins?
Holy cow.
You mean "recorded music" history. Didn't have much of an influence on Bach, for example.
Very nice
So he didn’t invent the Hammond organ?
The Hammond organ was invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935.
i thinked same thing
I was so sure this video was going to be about the Hammond organ, what a twist!
That's what I thought.
No but he made Jurassic Park
why was he less racist than most people then?
According to a 2006 biography by Dunstan Prial (one of the most oft-cited sources of info on Hammond), it was a combination of his parents and infatuation with Black music. The latter is covered in this video. For the former, his mom had at least some desire to give back to the community and promote social reform as part of her faith, and his father believed that the children should still be exposed to what living life outside of their extreme wealth was like. At least relatively speaking for both. These taught him perspectives of other Americans, including Black Americans.
@@bmac4i mean they said in the video he was exploiting musicians. I’m willing to bet thats mostly the truth and not so much his parents wanting to “expose him to life outside of the wealth”. History is written by the winners after all
@@poindextertunes I watched the whole video all the way through and I do not see how the video insinuates that he exploited musicians...only that he could have come across that way to the people that didn't get along with him.
There was very little incentive for him to exploit when what wealth he could've made couldn't possibly hold a candle to how rich he already was. He went to great lengths to re-release and bring exposure to a dead artist, with almost nothing to gain from it.
The rich used to have the 'nobles oblige' attitude and sought to find artists to give exposure to. Now that's tapped down to ' investment opportunity'. Does anyone know who was painting those NFT apes.?
Why change the title the day after release?
Many TH-camrs lately have been trying out multiple different titles and/or thumbnails on their videos, experimenting to see which ones are most effective.
The narrator is hard core progressivenazi
It's very interesting how every one else, except black people, are given credit for shaping American music. They, blacks, just play it; they don't "shape" it.
i am somewhat concerned by the amount of people that seem to be able to remember the name of a "bit" character from a movie from over 20 freaking years ago well enough to make jokes about confusing him with the topic of this video
"y'all can't remember what you had for dinner last week?
but this rando's name from this one movie 20 years ago? nah no problem" 😆
"Some movie" it was the BIGGEST movie of that year, and it still holds up 31 years later. Plus, he had a catchphrase. Hard to forget a catchphrase.
I mean it was a pretty stinkin' big movie.
On the one hand I’m happy this doesn’t have any bot comments but on the other hand I’m sad this is more popular
Although I appreciate you highlighting someone who actually made much of these wonderful musicians' careers possible. I hate the hyperbole. Bob Dylan and the blues and jazz musicians you mention are not that pivotal in the very large scheme of music history. If you want to talk about pivotal backers of just one musician - look into Count Waldstein and others who supported the young talent Ludwig Van Beethoven to push his talents as a composer and come up with some of his innovations. Beethoven could not rely on the growing middle class to have his pieces performed often. As Tia Nora writes in her article "Musical Patronage and Social Change in Beethoven's Vienna" the American Journal of Musicology from the 1991 issues, middle class audiences heard mainly the lightweight pieces of Haydn, Mozart and earlier gallant and Italian style of composers such as Paisiello (Beethoven being savvy wrote a series of variation of a theme by him for piano!) and arias from Italian opera composers such as Cherubini ( a composer who did traverse both the middle brow and more serious music lovers). IN fact Beethoven had such an attraction from some of his aristocrat patrons they offered him to stay in Vienna and do what he pleased for an annual salary that is equivalent to about $120,000 a year in today's dollars.
Again I am glad you do showcase Hammond but ease up on the hyperbole. And do a video about Beethoven and how patronage and Beethoven's approaches to gain patrons enabled him to have a luxury that Haydn and Mozart (as well as Bach and many other composers) did NOT have -- a yearly stipend to just write what he wwanted.
the title of the video is "American music"😅
Well then how about actually doing a video on such Americans as Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Milton Babbit and Morton Feldman who had a far greater impact on music than Hammond.
Tender member
Misleading information in this video, and what the hell is an 'American Aristocrat'?
An American Aristocrat is an American from a wealthy family who doesn’t have to work for a living. Hammond was an Aristocrat because he came from an obscenely wealthy family, the Vanderbilt’s.
Really?? What were your ancestors involved in?? How is it relevant to what you are doing today??
Tried to listen to this, but that narrative style is awful…
Sounds more like a gatekeeper to me 😒
Yes, the music industry was exploitive of black talent. But it was exploitive of white talent as well.
Geebuss, copy-paste from A History of Rock and Roll in 500 Songs. Not even a shout out to Andrew Hicky. For shame 👎🏻
God, it's like he was involved with every genre I despise.
Jazz is bougie city music, the blues gave you everything but people can't get enough jazz tootely doodelies...
I'm so happy the dislike button is back.
What, no Stevie Ray Vaughan, you a s s wipe?
Did you even listen to the whole video? SRV was mentioned.