Summertime
George Gershwin's Life in Music
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Narrated by:
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David Colacci
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By:
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Richard Crawford
About this listen
New York City native and gifted pianist George Gershwin blossomed as an accompanist before his talent as a songwriter opened the way to Broadway, where he fashioned his own brand of American music. He composed a long run of musical comedies, many with his brother Ira as lyricist, but his aspirations reached beyond commercial success.
A lifetime learner, Gershwin was able to appeal to listeners on both sides of the purported popular-classical divide. In 1924 - when he was just 25 - he bridged that gap with his first instrumental composition, Rhapsody in Blue, an instant classic.
From that time forward his work as a composer, pianist, and citizen of the Jazz Age made him in some circles a leader on America's musical scene. In the late 1920s Gershwin extended the range of the shows he scored to include the United Kingdom. Moreover, having polished his skills as an orchestrator, he pushed boundaries again in 1935 with the groundbreaking folk opera Porgy and Bess - his magnum opus.
Acclaimed music historian Richard Crawford traces the arc of Gershwin's remarkable life, seamlessly blending colorful anecdotes with a discussion of Gershwin's unforgettable oeuvre.
©2019 Richard Crawford (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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The Sound of Music Story
- How a Beguiling Young Novice, a Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing Von Trapp Children Inspired the Most Beloved Film of All Time
- By: Tom Santopietro
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Now Tom Santopietro has written the ultimate Sound of Music fan audiobook with all the inside dope, from behind-the-scenes stories of the filming in Austria and Hollywood to new interviews with Johannes von Trapp and others. Santopietro looks back at the real-life story of Maria von Trapp, goes on to chronicle the sensational success of the Broadway musical, and recounts the story of the near cancellation of the film when Cleopatra bankrupted 20th Century Fox.
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A must for super-fans
- By Simone on 07-29-17
By: Tom Santopietro
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The Secret Life of the American Musical
- How Broadway Shows Are Built
- By: Jack Viertel
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?
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Great review lacked music
- By joseph f mcgovern on 10-14-18
By: Jack Viertel
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan
- A Portrait
- By: Daniel Mark Epstein
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid, full-bodied portrait of one of the most influential artists of the 20th-century - a man widely regarded as the most important lyricist America has ever produced. Acclaimed poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein frames Dylan against the backdrop of four seminal concerts - all of which he attended. Beautifully written, The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a unique, eye-opening portrait of an artist who has transformed generations and continues to inspire and surprise today.
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Excellent book, excellent narration
- By L chandler on 12-22-11
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The Rest Is Noise
- Listening to the 20th Century
- By: Alex Ross
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 23 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.
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Learned so much!
- By Paula on 02-18-08
By: Alex Ross
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Country Music
- A History
- By: Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
- Narrated by: Brian Corrigan, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The rich and colorful story of America's most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the 20th century - based on the upcoming eight-part film series to air on PBS in September 2019.
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Immersed in country music!
- By Lori Hanson on 09-30-19
By: Dayton Duncan, and others
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Alan Lomax: A Biography
- The Man Who Recorded the World
- By: John Szwed
- Narrated by: Scott Sowers
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The remarkable life and times of the man who popularized American folk music and created the science of song. Folklorist, archivist, anthropologist, singer, political activist, talent scout, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, concert and record producer, Alan Lomax is best remembered as the man who introduced folk music to the masses. Lomax began his career making field recordings of rural music for the Library of Congress and by the late 1930s brought his discoveries to radio, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives.
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They Done Good
- By DonnaMarie113 on 06-26-22
By: John Szwed
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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Dig If You Will the Picture
- Funk, Sex, God and Genius in the Music of Prince
- By: Ben Greenman
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Ben Greenman, New York Times best-selling author, contributing writer to The New Yorker, and owner of thousands of recordings of Prince and Prince-related songs, knows intimately that there has never been a rock star as vibrant, mercurial, willfully contrary, experimental, or prolific as Prince. Uniting a diverse audience while remaining singularly himself, Prince was a tireless artist, a musical virtuoso and chameleon, and a pop-culture prophet.
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Reads like a indepth career review & analysis
- By herb on 05-18-17
By: Ben Greenman
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Uncommon People
- The Rise and Fall of The Rock Stars
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.
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INSIGHTFULL!
- By CLAUDIA R KENNEDY on 02-18-18
By: David Hepworth
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When Women Invented Television
- The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today
- By: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the Golden Age of Radio and powerful men were making millions in advertising dollars reaching thousands of listeners every day. When television arrived, few radio moguls were interested in the upstart industry and its tiny production budgets, and expensive television sets were out of reach for most families. But four women - each an independent visionary - saw an opportunity and carved their own paths, and in so doing invented the way we watch TV today.
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Must Read T.V.
- By cindy on 05-18-21
What listeners say about Summertime
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Cancelled
- 01-22-23
Wonderful , but poinient bio of a musical genius!!
Sad and truthful -story of the young genius .Gershwin's short tragic life. What a loss for music!!
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- Stephen E Jacobs
- 10-28-19
Read this first
I was intrigued by the idea of a biography of Geshwin, so I downloaded this book.
In the introduction, the author explains he's musicology professor. I can see that in this book. Vast passages describe the music in all sorts of detail about structure, etc. I'm not that knowledgeable about music, so this was lost on me.
This all makes sense as what could be an academic text, but the book isn't so described.
It would have been so much better if in the descriptions of the music were accompanied by selections of that which is being discussed. That would have made this book excellent for someone like me.
The narrator is excellent as always. He, along with the subject matter, is why I bought this book.
If you're into music enough to appreciate all the discussions then this would be a 5 star listen. If not, a biography that focused more on the composer's life and times would be preferable.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Kyle Michel
- 08-30-22
Not what I was hoping for.
This book was a disappointment. I was hoping for a bio on George Gershwin that explicated the person and placed him in the context of his times. That book would relate to the reader his personality and his relationships with others around him. It would talk about Gershwin’s artistic work and how his art innovated on others’ before him and how it affected what came after him. It would talk about how he was perceived by the general public compared to how the general public was perceiving other artists at the time and how the general public was accepting/reacting to the same and other musical styles. It would leave the reader feeling like they they had a good sense of what it was like to know George Gershwin if you had lived in his times and followed his career.
The reader gets a little bit of that, and can kinda intuit some of that. But, this book leaves the reader feeling more like they would had they sat in a library and read old newspaper and magazine articles about Gershwin and his musicals and performances.
The author spends way way too much time detailing the plot of every. single. musical Gershwin wrote - even the ones that were commercial flops. These are drawn out mechanical descriptions of the characters and the scenes and storylines of every one. The detail is too much to follow probably because this just isn’t what I, as the reader, was looking for. I wanted to know about Gershwin, not read cliff notes on all his plays and musicals.
When the author does talk about his life, we get some feel for who he was, but a lot of what we get is detail on contracts, where he went when, and performance dates (including one inexcusable section where the author just lists ad nauseum something like 30-40 dates and venues on some tour Gershwin did). Again, mechanical recapitulations of objective facts that don’t really give the reader a feel for the person who was George Gershwin.
This book may be what others are looking for, especially if they are interested in brief (somewhat) summaries of all his different musicals, musical pieces, and Porgy and Bess (an hour-plus walk-thru scene by scene - whew!). That just isn’t what I was hoping for.
Finally, the narrator is competent, but has a somewhat droning, slow-talking sorta 1970s newscaster throwback style that does not help liven the authors’ somewhat lifeless content.
I’ve never given a book fewer than 4 stars. I was just disappointed with this book and it didn’t get better as the book went on.
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1 person found this helpful