Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on February 25, 2008 | No Comments »
A long time ago I corresponded with, and if I remember right, even spoke to, some folks in Holland putting together a two-part radio show of versions of “SJI.” (Here and here.) During that exchange I was informed that a version of “SJI” performed by Johnny Kendall & The Heralds was a huge hit there, [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Questions (and sometimes answers), Versions on December 13, 2007 | 1 Comment »
In the comments to a recent SJI YouTube roundup, a reader brought to my attention the above video. It’s bit of an a 1993 ice-skating competition; the skaters are Grishuk and Platov. And the music to their program is, of course, “SJI.”
I know nothing about ice-skating, but I thought it was kind of cool.
Anyway, the [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc. on November 27, 2007 | No Comments »
At first I thought that, Henrik Eriksson, a disc jockey in Uppsala, Sweden, was writing to me because of the podcast, but now I think it’s a coincidence that he happened to alert me to a very compelling YouTube video right around the same time.
The video is a computer animated piece, bringing to life the [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on November 2, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I never really pictured the protagonist of “SJI” looking like Fred Astaire. But I guess anything is possible. The first three minutes or so of this dance “interpretation” of the song — performed here by Jonah Jones — are pretty dull and didactic, but then the dead lover pops up from her long white table [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on September 26, 2007 | 3 Comments »
I made another pass through the land of YouTube for “SJI” versions this past weekend. Wallowing in these “grass roots” takes is always a mixed affair: One thing the video-web “democratizes” is bad audio quality and camera work documenting the forgettable, forever. But I’ve narrowed it down to the more interesting stuff for you, because [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on August 28, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Here’s another interesting YouTube find: George E. Lee and his Novelty Singing Orchestra, doing “SJI” in a 1929 recording. Like the previously noted White Stripes “video” version, this one is just the song plus a sort of montage of images, mostly taken, I assume, from around the Web. (The image of the [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on August 10, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Eli Presser, puppet master, works in local puppet productions and often does street work as here, in front of the Los Feliz movie theater on upper Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles
So says the description on YouTube of this last in my latest batch of posts drawn from wasting time on the famous video site.
As [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Movies & Television, MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Non-musical context, Versions on August 8, 2007 | No Comments »
Speaking of “SJI” in the movies, here’s another example — rather different from the previously mentioned Taste of Cherry.
I forget how I got wind that the tune appears in the 2001 anime film Metropolis; it may be that I became aware of the sound track first, and then backed into it from there.
In any case, [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on August 6, 2007 | No Comments »
I’ve heard Cab Calloway’s original take on “SJI” a thousand times, largely because it’s the main event in the sound track of that Betty Boop cartoon I’m always mentioning. But here, via YouTube, is a clip of a different take, apparently in 1950.
The arrangement is a little different — if possibly, even more of a [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on August 3, 2007 | No Comments »
I’ve been trolling YouTube again for “SJI” artifacts, and have a few to lay on you, the mysterious reader, over the course of the next week or so.
First up is a singer who is also mysterious, at least to me. I burned up some time Googling Colette Magny, and mostly found myself on sites written [...]
[Or: The Point of this Site]
A couple of years ago I did some research into the song "St. James Infirmary," wrote up what I found, emailed that essay to friends and posted it on my web site (as part of a series of "Letters From New Orleans," as I was living in that city at the time). Based on the feedback, I wrote a second version of the essay, and asked for more feedback. Based on that, I wrote a third version.
And now, this site: A place to collect some of the links, leads, thoughts, and suggestions relating to the song that readers (from Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, Spain, England, Sweden, Canada, and all over the U.S.) have sent me. This may lead to a fourth and significantly expanded version of the essay, some day. Also on this site: Plenty of tangents.
Never heard "St. James Infirmary"? Start here.
The most recent version of my "St. James Infirmary" essay is now a few years old. But it's still a fairly decent overview of what I know about the song, and why I'm interested in it. You can read it either in the book Letters from New Orleans (see below), or in the archives of The Gambit, the New Orleans weekly that published the piece as a book excerpt when LfNO came out.
This site is a partial spinoff of the book Letters from New Orleans, published by the unstoppable Garrett County Press. My interest in "St. James Infirmary" is the subject of one essay in the book. All author proceeds from the book still go to post-Katrina relief efforts, so I think it's okay for me to say: You ought to buy it.
