music – On Wisconsin https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com For UW-Madison Alumni and Friends Fri, 24 Feb 2023 20:10:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 Merry Olde Madison https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/merry-olde-madison/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/merry-olde-madison/#respond Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:09:52 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=35205

A playful twist on traditional English pageantry. Andy Manis

For a few magical nights each holiday season, UW–Madison practically transforms into 16th-century Oxford. The annual Tudor Holiday Dinner Concerts, hosted by the Wisconsin Union, put a playful twist on traditional English pageantry. Gathered in Memorial Union’s decked-out Great Hall, guests indulge in a feast fit for royalty while enjoying a spirited performance from the Philharmonic Chorus of Madison and a ceremonial presentation of a (fake) boar’s head.

The Tudor Holiday Dinner Concerts date to 1933, when a group of singers under the direction of music professor Edgar Gordon ’27, MA’29 performed at the University Club and the Memorial Union. The boar’s head was inspired by a tradition at the University of Rochester in New York, which drew on an old English legend of a scholar who slew a wild boar by ramming a book by Aristotle down its throat. (Score a point for academia?)

The evening typically begins with a cocktail hour, with hors d’oeuvres and traditional wassail (hot mulled cider). When the bells ring, it’s time for the presentation of the boar’s head, a yuletide toast, and the start of the feast. The Wisconsin Union’s catering team brings out the extravagant spread. This year’s entrées include maple-glazed pork tenderloin with mustard fingerlings and a vegetarian maple-glazed acorn squash. Dessert is always flaming figgy pudding with a hard sauce.

The UW’s Tudor Singers performed at the event until 1972, when the Philharmonic Chorus of Madison took over. Now, the crowd sings along with the ensemble’s holiday carols. The night ends with a formal concert, which includes stately renditions of “Silent Night” and Mozart’s “Dona Nobis Pacem.”

After a COVID-19 hiatus in 2020 and 2021, the Tudor Holiday Dinner Concerts return this year to Great Hall. The Wisconsin Union will host five events from November 30 to December 4, offering some 250 tickets for each.

“Tudor Holiday Dinner Concerts are nights of relaxation, delicious food, and beautiful artistry,” says Shauna Breneman, communications director for the Wisconsin Union. “They are the perfect way to enjoy winter as a family, couple, or group of friends.”

In other words: long may this tradition reign.

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She Loves U-Rah-Rah (Rah) https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/she-loves-u-rah-rah-rah/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/she-loves-u-rah-rah-rah/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:08:48 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=35224 Different record album covers from the 60s and 70s

The treasure trove of vinyl and memorabilia comprises more than 600 rare LPs featuring live shows, interviews, press conferences, home recordings, outtakes, and unreleased tracks. Chris Flink

Throughout their brief but busy touring years, the Beatles never touched down on a Madison tarmac. Neither the unmistakable opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night” nor the frenzied shrieks that drowned out the band’s live concerts ever rattled the rafters of the Stock Pavilion or echoed through the stately halls of Memorial Union. More than 50 years after the Fab Four broke up, they have finally found their way to the UW–Madison campus — not on a stage, but in the rare kind of library where sound abounds.

The Jim Berkenstadt Beatles LP Collection, the latest addition to the Mills Music Library, isn’t your local record store’s stock of the band’s biggest hits. Instead, this treasure trove of vinyl and memorabilia explores the nuances of some of the most influential musicians in history through bootleg recordings of the band and of the individual members in their solo careers. It comprises more than 600 rare LPs featuring live shows, interviews, press conferences, home recordings, outtakes, unreleased tracks, and more.

“I took classes in art in college, and we would follow a Picasso from its very first drawings all the way to the finished painting,” says Berkenstadt, the curator and donor of the collection. “[Through these bootlegs], I was looking at the Beatles’ music in that same way.”

Berkenstadt is a music historian who has made a name for himself as the “Rock and Roll Detective.” In addition to publishing numerous best-selling books, he has consulted on such projects as Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011), Ron Howard’s The Beatles: Eight Days a Week The Touring Years (2016), and Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back (2021).

The beauty of the collection lies not only in the novelty of its items, but in their utility for teaching the history of recorded sound through a band that was instrumental in shaping it.

“The Beatles were issued in lots of different configurations, so we can study how those recording technologies actually impacted the sound,” says Nate Gibson, an ethnomusicologist and audiovisual preservation archivist at Mills. Music public services librarian Tom Caw also sees the collection as a tool for teaching students about the unique attributes of vinyl, such as liner notes and cover art.

“I’m excited about having the physical evidence to share with students so that they get the fuller sense of what these LPs meant in their time: for us to hold them in our hands, to look at them, to turn from the front cover to the back cover, and then to take the LP out and play it on our equipment,” says Susan Cook, director of the UW Mead Witter School of Music. “It [shows] that the music isn’t just the sound. The music is the technology. The music is the material culture.”

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A DJ Makes Good https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/a-dj-makes-good/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/a-dj-makes-good/#respond Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:08:48 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=35215 Black and white photo of Bruce Ravid with members of the band The Knack

Ravid (center) with The Knack, whom he helped develop along with Iron Maiden, Duran Duran, and “Weird Al” Yankovic. Courtesy of Bruce Ravid

As a DJ and music director for UW–Madison radio station WSRM, the predecessor to WSUM, Bruce Ravid ’74 helped increase its visibility while putting his stamp on the music played in the early ’70s.

“I used to joke with people that I majored in college radio and minored in business at the UW,” says Ravid, who was music director at the station for three years. That experience allowed him to get to know Capitol Records, which offered him a radio-promoter job in Chicago while he was a senior. He spent the next five years there, reveling in the opportunity to discover and play emerging bands on the radio.

He then transitioned to a managerial position, where he helped develop a variety of musical artists, including The Knack, Iron Maiden, Duran Duran, and “Weird Al” Yankovic.

One of his favorite memories is pitching Yankovic’s parody cover of The Knack’s “My Sharona” to Capitol. First, he needed to run it by the band. As the group’s tour bus was parked in front of Memorial Union during a Madison gig, he recalls The Knack members erupting in laughter when he shared “My Bologna.” “That was the beginning of what’s been an amazing career for ‘Weird Al,’ ” Ravid says.

Recently, he’s returned to his DJ roots. In addition to a radio show, Go Deep with Bruce Rave, he has a weekly podcast called Rave’s Indie Radar. The 20-minute episodes feature indie rock tracks selected from well-known and emerging artists. “If I can get some other people to really like this song or like this artist, it still feels great to me,” he says.

He credits the late Dave Black MA’03, the general manager of WSUM for 26 years, for his renewed interest in radio. In 2008, Black asked Ravid to host “these eight-hour marathons, although since I would call myself Bruce Rave on the air, we called them Ravathons. I developed this great love for being back on the air behind the microphone,” he says.

That led to his developing his own radio show on several stations, including WSUM and Monona, Wisconsin’s WVMO. He later received an offer from Snippet.FM to do a podcast version of his show.

He hopes his career provides inspiration for others.

“I always tell students, ‘Once your grades are sorted out, find something that you’re really passionate about, because it just might lead to a career you weren’t anticipating,’ ” he says.

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The Sound of Silent Movies https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/the-sound-of-silent-movies/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/the-sound-of-silent-movies/#respond Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:08:48 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=35211 Paul Woelbing poses in front of a large organ

Woelbing calls the organ’s sounds “the anteroom to heaven.” Kristen Gourlie

When Paul Woelbing ’79 entered the 40,000-square-foot warehouse his family company was thinking of buying in 2000, his father noted the roof and the parking-lot size. Woelbing noticed something else.

“I thought, ‘Wow, there’s a two-and-a-half-second delay in here when you talk. There’s a nice echo — I could do something with that,’ ” says Woelbing, now president of Carma Laboratories, Inc., the third-generation maker of Carmex lip balm.

While the company didn’t buy that facility, it built a similar one — with acoustics to match. Twenty-two years later, the unremarkable warehouse on the outskirts of Milwaukee is filled to the rafters with not only boxes of lip balm but also the soaring sounds of a theater organ.

Woelbing turned to experts at Century Pipe Organs in Minneapolis to assemble his vision with parts from dozens of retired organs. The core is a Wurlitzer console from Chicago’s Nortown Theater. It has four keyboards, plus myriad switches that mimic strings, percussion, brass, woodwind, and voice. Its many pipes vary from a quarter-inch to 32 feet tall.

An American invention, theater pipe organs provided a lively backdrop for silent movies in the early 1900s. Only a few hundred of the nearly 10,000 original organs still exist. At 6,000 pipes, the Carmex instrument is the largest theater organ in the world. “The organ is a manifestation of being a quirky, family-owned business,” Woelbing says.

When Woelbing was young, he was curious about mechanical instruments such as music boxes and player pianos. At the UW, he studied metalsmithing under professors Fred Fenster and Eleanor Moty. He earned his bachelor’s in art education and then taught high school art for 10 years before joining Carmex in 1992.

To professional organists such as film composer Mark Herman, the Carma Labs instrument is a gem. They sit at the console and lean into the keys, feet flying on the pedalboard, filling the warehouse with booming music. They make it purr, too, with soft arrangements lifted by transcendent strings — “the anteroom to heaven,” Woelbing says with a sigh.

Younger listeners are discovering the instrument. Local Gen-Xers and Millennials in the American Theatre Organ Society help Woelbing put on free concerts. One drew an unexpected 1,400 people during a community open house. “My goal is to make it friendly, make it fun,” Woelbing says.

And like the company that houses it, the organ will pass to the next generation. Woelbing has bequeathed it to his nephew, who has promised to keep the music playing.

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The All-Time Greatest UW Playlist https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/the-all-time-greatest-uw-playlist/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/the-all-time-greatest-uw-playlist/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:08:48 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=35161 Beethoven and Bach in the Hamel Music Center. National headliners at the Wisconsin Union Theater. Sweet summer sounds on the Memorial Union Terrace.

On the UW campus, music is everywhere, whether it’s being performed on stages or taught in classrooms. Little wonder, then, that the university has produced popular musicians of the highest order. They’ve mastered their genres, sold millions of records, even been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Here are some of the greatest songs by artists Badgers can proudly call their own.

“Down So Low” | Mother Earth, 1968

Madison native Tracy Nelson x’67 spent a couple of years at the UW studying social work and singing at parties and coffeehouses. Then California beckoned. In San Francisco she fronted the blues-rock band Mother Earth and, following a romance with future rock legend Steve Miller x’65, wrote the weeper “Down So Low.”

Nelson has recorded the soul-inflected song numerous times over the years. As performed by Mother Earth, it’s staggering, a slow burn punctuated by startling key changes and sweet backing vocals. Nelson’s singing is gigantic. “I know your opinion of me isn’t good,” she moans, and anyone who’s ever been through a breakup knows just what she means.

“Feel Your Groove” | Ben Sidran, 1971

After earning a doctorate in American studies at the University of Sussex, keyboardist Ben Sidran ’67 launched a music career that included work with the Steve Miller Band and a series of solo albums on which he perfected a distinctive blend of jazz and rock. “Feel Your Groove,” the title track of his debut release, feels like a statement of purpose, with Mose Allison–inflected speak-singing, dreamy chord sequences, teasing strings, and an extended jam that signifies maximal groove-feeling.

“Dueling Banjos” | Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, 1973

Bluegrass seldom dominates the pop charts, but that’s what happened in 1973, when the rollicking “Dueling Banjos” peaked at number two on Billboard’s Hot 100. The release was also a number-five country hit and even topped the easy-listening chart. Not bad for this simple instrumental duet recorded by guitarist Steve Mandell and, on banjo, the late Eric Weissberg x’61. (Right, one of the banjos on “Dueling Banjos” isn’t a banjo. Don’t worry.)

Weissberg attended the UW and the Juilliard School of Music before collaborating with future screenwriter and director Marshall Brickman ’62 on a 1963 album, New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass. Tracks from that album, as well as “Dueling Banjos,” wound up on the soundtrack of Deliverance, the unsettling 1972 film that gave “Banjos” its wide audience.

“The Joker” | Steve Miller Band, 1973

Steve Miller came of age musically in Texas, but his roots are in Milwaukee. That’s where he had an early mentor in Les Paul, a pioneer of electric guitar and a good guy for a future Rock & Roll Hall of Famer to know. At the UW, he founded the Ardells, which featured future stars Boz Scaggs x’66 and Sidran. Miller left Wisconsin to soak up the blues in Chicago, then made his way to San Francisco and launched a campaign to conquer radio and the rest of the world.

A series of albums and singles met, at first, middling success. Then came “The Joker.” It reached number one on the Billboard pop chart and set the template for hit records that followed: sparkling arrangement, glib lyrics, guitar hooks no one forgets. But as great as other Miller singles are, “The Joker” wields a secret weapon: the word pompatus. Pompatus.

“Lowdown” | Boz Scaggs, 1976

Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller were friends and musical collaborators as schoolboys in Texas, and with the Ardells they entertained in dorms and at sorority parties. Scaggs appeared on the first two Steve Miller Band albums and released a series of tasteful solo albums that didn’t make much of a commercial impact, notwithstanding the searing Duane Allman collaboration “Loan Me a Dime,” from Scaggs’s second, self-titled release. But when Scaggs released Silk Degrees in 1976, the album’s deft agglomeration of soul, rock, and disco captured a moment. The Force was strongest on the low-key “Lowdown,” with its sly groove and louche lyrics, to say nothing of a flute earworm to beat all flute earworms.

Silk Degrees was a multiplatinum smash. No need to wonder-wonder-wonder who is doing that smooth, dare we say silky, singing. It’s Boz.

“Member of the Family” | Spooner, 1982

Garbage cofounder and drummer Butch Vig ’80 walked a long road to alt-rock megastardom. A native of Viroqua, Wisconsin, Vig studied film at the UW. Beginning in the 1970s he was in the power-pop band Spooner, along with future Garbage guitarist Duke Erikson, and the band went on to release three indie albums. The first, 1982’s Every Corner Dance, received positive attention in Rolling Stone. Singer/ guitarist/songwriter Erikson “acknowledges his debt to the Beatles in just about every song,” critic Lloyd Sachs wrote.

The album yielded the memorable track “Member of the Family,” which features the jerky rhythms and tinny keyboards familiar to fans of early 1980s New Wave. The song’s melancholy lyrics fit uneasily with the upbeat music, and what’s more New Wave than that?

Album cover showing the three members of Fire Town

Fire Town’s “Carry the Torch” features chiming guitars and Byrds-like dreaminess.

“Carry the Torch” | Fire Town, 1986

Next on Butch Vig’s musical journey came Fire Town, a rock band whose members included another UW alum, Phil Davis ’76, MA’81. The group released a pair of albums with Atlantic, In the Heart of the Heart Country and The Good Life. A standout track from the former, “Carry the Torch,” features the chiming guitars and Byrds-like dreaminess that were all the rage on college radio in the mid-1980s.

“Stupid Girl” | Garbage, 1995

The music Butch Vig made with his 1980s bands was taut and effective, but something was missing. That something, it turns out, was Shirley Manson. Vig, Steve Marker, and Duke Erikson teamed with the flame-haired Scots siren to form Garbage. A signature act of alternative rock’s commercial triumph in the 1990s, Garbage has sold zillions of albums, played the grand stages of the world, and recorded a James Bond theme, all while maintaining its acerbic wit and fierce artistic integrity. At the height of their fame, band members stayed in Wisconsin even as performers not half as successful might have drifted to the coasts.

“Stupid Girl,” the highest-charting single from the group’s self-titled debut, perfectly encapsulates the Garbage strategy: voluptuous synthesizers, concise guitar hooks, arch lyrics, and, best of all, Manson’s menacing vocals. Wherever this song is playing it’s 1995 again, but only in good ways.

“Breakfast of Champions” | Rainer Maria, 1999

From the ashes of another group named for a poet, Ezra Pound, UW students Kaia Fischer ’97, William Kuehn ’93, and Caithlin De Marrais ’96 formed Rainer Maria. The emo combo made a name for itself among indie fans with its musing lyrics, soft-loud dynamics, and proudly unvarnished singing. In the 1990s and 2000s, the group released five albums and toured the small venues of the unforgiving indie circuit before parting ways in 2006. They subsequently reformed and, in 2017, released another album, S/T.

“Breakfast of Champions,” from the 1999 release Look Now Look Again, is a mournful, despairing breakup song with lyrics that are in turn abstract and all too precise in their sadness. “When he left me, we drove into a snowstorm,” De Marrais murmurs at the end. Sigh.

Black and white photo of Peter and Lou Berryman outside of the Club de Wash bar

Peter and Lou Berryman: “I used to sit out on the Terrace and watch my grade point disappear.” Brent Nicastro

“Madison, Wisconsin” | Lou and Peter Berryman, 2000

Madison-based Lou ’77 and Peter x’69 Berryman have forged a long, remarkable career recording albums and performing their funny, subversive songs in folk clubs and church basements. Accordionist Lou writes the music, guitarist Peter the lyrics, and they harmonize robustly as they sing laugh-out-loud ditties about consumer paranoia, ecological dread, and weird stuff in the refrigerator. Career highlights include Love Is the Weirdest of All, a 2004 theatrical revue of Berryman songs that Madison Repertory Theatre staged in the UW’s Vilas Hall.

“Madison, Wisconsin” is a sweet, nostalgic tribute to the Badger State capital in general and the UW experience in particular. “I used to sit out on the Terrace,” they sing, “and watch my grade point disappear.”

“I’m Not Shy” | Joy and the Boy, 2004

Ben isn’t the only talented Sidran to graduate from the UW. Son Leo Sidran ’99 is a music-business veteran in his own right, with credits that include the Academy Award–winning song he produced, Jorge Drexler’s “Al Otro Lado del Río,” from the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries. In the early 2000s, Sidran teamed with the gifted singer-songwriter Joy Dragland ’00 to form the pop duo Joy and the Boy. Early gigs included a 2000 spot opening for presidential candidate Al Gore on Madison’s Capitol Square. Then came a series of releases, each one a showcase for Sidran’s taut musicianship and Dragland’s poised singing.

A standout song is “I’m Not Shy” from the pair’s first album, Paradise, with a teasing vocal by Dragland and a lively beat that recalls 1970s funk. “I’m not shy,” she purrs, and we believe her.

“Night” | Zola Jesus, 2010

As a UW student, Nika Roza Danilova ’10 studied philosophy and French. She also developed Zola Jesus, the brooding, goth-inflected music persona that, starting in the early 2010s, has been received ecstatically in the indie music world and beyond. Danilova has released a series of acclaimed albums marked by her powerful, operatic singing. “Not many female pop voices have sounded like this,” the New York Times reported admiringly in 2011.

“Night,” a highlight of Danilova’s 2010 release Stridulum II, recalls goth icons like Siouxsie and the Banshees with its moody atmospherics. Yes, it’s a love song, but take a line like: “In the end of the night we’ll rest our bones.” “Rest our bones” is a normal, everyday saying, but in this gloomy setting it has all kinds of creepy connotations.

“Devils and Angels” | Toby Lightman, 2013

As a member of the Chi Omega sorority, Toby Lightman ’00 honed her musical chops performing in Humorology, the annual variety show staged by UW Greek organizations. “I was in the cast all four years and directed my senior year,” she told the Badger Herald in 2004. After graduation the Cherry Hill, New Jersey, native tended bar in New York City and eventually signed with Lava Records.

Her debut album, Little Things, included “Devils and Angels,” a cheeky woman-done-wrong anthem that melds rock and hip-hop sounds with Lightman’s seething lyrics. “I’m going to greet you at her back door as you’re coming out,” she hisses. That can’t end well! The song slid into the Top 20 on Billboard’s Adult Pop chart, and a series of major-label and independent releases followed.

“Impossible” | Lucien Parker, 2017

Since 2007, undergraduates in the UW’s First Wave scholarship program have studied hip-hop culture in its many aspects — rap, poetry, visual art, dance. Some have gone on to successful recording careers, including rapper Lucien Parker ’19, the South Minneapolis native who landed his musing, low-key track “Impossible” on an episode of the Marvel TV series Cloak & Dagger. That makes Parker officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Achievement unlocked!

“Mr. Clean” | Yung Gravy, 2018

In the weeks leading up to his UW graduation, rapper Matthew Hauri ’17, a.k.a. Yung Gravy, had to miss class — but not for the usual college-student reasons. He was flying off for contract negotiations with major music labels.

The absences paid off when Hauri signed with Republic Records and launched a platinum-selling recording career. But he notched one of his greatest successes when he was still an independent artist: “Mr. Clean,” which samples the Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” and features Hauri’s funny boasting about his romantic conquests. The video, in which Hauri traverses Lake Mendota on a Sea-Doo, is a stitch.

Zhararina Sanders holding a basketball at night with the glow of the Wisconsin State capitol dome in the background

Zhalarina’s “Lala” is a love letter to her father.

“Lala” | Zhalarina, 2019

Another First Wave alum, rapper Zhalarina Sanders ’15, MS’18, earned a regional Emmy for The Light, a collection of music videos she created for PBS Wisconsin.

She told National Public Radio that her powerful track “Lala” is a love letter to her father, who was incarcerated when she wrote it. “My favorite thing about the song is that it has done exactly what I wanted it to do for my family,” she said. “My dad definitely cries every time he hears it.”

“The Wine Talkin’ ” | The CashBox Kings, 2019

Harmonica player Joe Nosek ’97, MA’00 formed the blues band the Cash Box Kings as a UW graduate student in the early 2000s. His inspiration, he told the Chicago Tribune in 2017, was the Windy City legends whose music he heard when growing up in the Chicago suburbs: James Cotton, Junior Wells, Sunnyland Slim. “We wanted to help keep alive the traditional ’40s, ’50s, ’60s Chicago blues sound, and the ensemble approach to playing blues music,” Nosek said. A key personnel change came in 2007, when Chicago singer Oscar Wilson joined the lineup. The band tours internationally and has released albums steadily since its 2003 debut, Live! At the King Club.

On the group’s latest, 2019’s Hail to the Kings!, Brown duets amusingly with blues diva Shemekia Copeland in the boisterous shuffle “The Wine Talkin’.”

André De Shields wears a red robe in costume as Orpheus

De Shields’s singing is merrily malevolent on “Road to Hell.” Lia Chang

“Road to Hell” | André De Shields, 2019

If you were watching the Tony Awards in 2019, there’s a 99 percent chance you cried as actor-singer-dancer-director-choreographer André De Shields ’70 accepted his honor for best featured actor in the musical Hadestown, which revisits the mythology of Eurydice and Orpheus. Rather than rattling off the list of names typical of these moments, De Shields shared what he called his cardinal rules of ability and longevity, beginning with: “Surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming.” It was a graceful moment in an unforgettable career, and the award was well deserved.

His signature tune from the show, “Road to Hell” by Anaïs Mitchell, opens the proceedings with a slinky New Orleans sound and singing that is merrily malevolent.

“Rakin’ and Scrapin’ ” | Leon Lee Dorsey, 2021

At the UW, jazz bassist Leon Lee Dorsey MM’83 studied with legendary professor Richard Davis. Now Dorsey’s an associate professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the list of artists he has performed with is a who’s-who of American music: Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey.

Dorsey also leads his own band, and his latest release, 2021’s Thank You Mr. Mabern!, was the final recording project of the late pianist Harold Mabern, a legend in his own right. The Mabern composition “Rakin’ and Scrapin’ ” is a standout.

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Bob Dylan Flops on Campus https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/bob-dylan-flops-on-campus/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/bob-dylan-flops-on-campus/#comments Tue, 23 Aug 2022 17:18:16 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=34656 Black and white photo of young Bob Dylan performing onstage

In 1961, Dylan’s future looked grim — until fate intervened at the end of his Madison stay. Sigmund Goode / Michael Ochs Archive / Getty Images

The extravagant Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, opened in May, completing Dylan’s apotheosis. Though perhaps completing is the wrong word, since the 81-year-old musician shows no signs of slowing down. After selling 125 million albums and winning Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, he’s still touring and writing singular songs. He even has a new book coming out this fall, The Philosophy of Modern Song.

Dylan is up there with the greatest American artists, but would you believe that his path to immortality passed through a few low-rent UW–Madison apartments?

In January 1961, the 19-year-old University of Minnesota dropout headed to Madison with his acoustic guitar and harmonica, hoping to conquer the campus folk scene. He managed to meet the top UW folkies but, alas, not to impress them. At that point, only the former Robert Zimmerman saw himself as a musical genius. He performed for students at Groves Women’s Co-op, wailed Woody Guthrie songs at campus parties, and turned precisely zero heads. What most people noticed was the kid’s oddball outfit: a brown suit and a skinny tie.

How did it feel to be in Madison as a complete unknown, with no direction home? “I’ve been broke and cold,” he wrote to friends back in Minneapolis. The future looked grim.

Dylan crashed with his new UW friends for about a week and a half — and then fate intervened. One of his roomies offered a ride to New York City, which was folk music’s mecca. The determined teenager arrived in Greenwich Village and began the artistic transformation that would soon lead to “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” and superstardom. When he traveled to Madison again in May 1961, staying with friends for another couple weeks, his guitar and vocals rang with new authority.

Dylan has returned to town many times since his two campus-area stays, treating generations of UW students to his various incarnations: fierce protest singer, gnomic rocker, poetic country crooner, true-believing gospel shouter, raspy jazz traditionalist. His latest Madison appearance was in 2012, at the 10,000-seat Alliant Energy Center. Were any 1961-era alumni in attendance that night, when he played a decades-spanning set of masterpieces such as “All Along the Watchtower,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “Tangled Up in Blue”?

If so, they surely marveled at how many roads this man has walked down since flopping at Groves Women’s Co-op.

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The Beloved Badger Bash https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/the-beloved-badger-bash/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/the-beloved-badger-bash/#respond Tue, 23 Aug 2022 17:18:16 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=34625 Members of the UW Madison marching band play in a half circle around director Corey Pompey

UW Marching Band director Corey Pompey ushers in a new era for the Badger Bash at Union South. Bryce Richter

Fifty years ago, Badger Bash — the ultimate pregame festivity for Wisconsin football fans — was born.

When the original Union South opened in 1971, former Wisconsin Union manager Merrill “Corky” Sischo noticed a sea of Badger fans passing through the building for food and drinks before home football games. He connected with Mike Leckrone, then the fresh-faced director of the UW Marching Band, and together they threw the first official Badger Bash outside Union South in 1972.

The event started as a low-stakes opportunity for the marching band and pompon squad to warm up in front of a small audience. But by 1974, more than 3,000 fans were packing Union South’s grounds. They came for increasingly razzle-dazzle performances as well as brats and beer. In the early years, the event extended to after the game, with polkas and jazz by the Doc De Haven ’58 band in the Carousel room.

“As the crowd continued to grow, the performance became more ‘formulated’ but was still very relaxed,” Leckrone said shortly before his retirement in 2019.

Today, Badger Bash’s recipe largely remains the same. The free tailgate begins two and a half hours before every home football game, hosted by local celebrity emcees. Classic Wisconsin tailgate fare is still served, alongside more than 100 food and beverage options. (Bloody Mary bar, anyone?) The marching band, UW Spirit Squad, and Bucky himself take the stage around 90 minutes before kickoff with a preview of the halftime show and a plentiful helping of hip-swinging UW hits. The event is rounded out with kid-friendly activities and rivalry-related competitions. And fans without a ticket to the game can stick around and watch on the big screen at The Sett.

Badger Bash has become so beloved that the new Union South was practically built for it. The southwest plaza is roughly double the size of its predecessor, and architects specifically designed the space to accommodate the band’s staging needs.

In 2019, Corey Pompey made his public debut as the marching band director at the home-opening Badger Bash. The band delighted the crowd with the usual Badger hits, including the “Beer Barrel Polka.” But Pompey also introduced contemporary songs from the likes of Adele, The Killers, and Cardi B. Welcome to the new era of Badger Bash.

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Singing Their Hearts Out https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/singing-their-hearts-out/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/singing-their-hearts-out/#respond Tue, 23 Aug 2022 17:17:23 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=34679 Members of the singing group perform together all wearing coordinating black outfits and red shoes

Pitches & Notes performs during the competition’s final round: “We are thrilled to bring these accolades home to UW.”

In April, the UW–Madison treble group Pitches & Notes made history, winning first place at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) finals in New York City. Pitches & Notes is the UW’s first group to win that contest, as well as the first group from the Great Lakes region.

“We were so stunned,” says Hyunji Haynes ’22. “We are thrilled to bring these accolades home to UW and the greater Madison community. We could not have it done it without all the support!”

Ten groups from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom competed at the ICCA finals. Each prepared a 10-minute set and choreography.

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How Summer Nights Got Hot https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/how-summer-nights-got-hot/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/how-summer-nights-got-hot/#comments Sat, 28 May 2022 14:45:02 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=34026 Band performs at night on the outdoor stage at the Memorial Union Terrace

Madison’s WADOMA performs for the hip-shaking hordes in 2014. Jeff Miller

Of all the things we lost during the pandemic, objective observers might argue that the summer music series on the Memorial Union Terrace was relatively insignificant.

But UW–Madison students and alumni would surely not be among those objective observers.

“The Terrace music series adds a sense of excitement to the Madison community,” says Heidi Lang, the Wisconsin Union’s associate director of social education. “It brings people together across generations, with something for everybody.”

For nearly 50 years, the free outdoor concerts have helped define a Madison summer. The series began with a smattering of shows in the 1970s but revved up in the early ’80s, when local acts performed on a wooden platform just outside the Rathskeller. One day, a few students had the bright idea of moving the platform down by Lake Mendota to create a more scenic backdrop, so they went ahead and did it without asking for permission. Startled administrators held meetings to debate the ramifications and decided that, hey, the new location wasn’t such a bad idea.

A Terrace remodel in the 1980s installed a permanent stage by the lake, complete with a canopy. And that — along with an increased budget to attract bigger bands — helped turn summer music on the Terrace into a sensation. The new name for the series, “Hot Summer Nights,” was not false advertising.

Top local draws alternated with national acts like the Violent Femmes and the Indigo Girls, attracting hip-shaking hordes. The Union’s student music committee started booking bands on the way up, a tradition that continues to this day. Fleet Foxes are among those who played the Terrace before making it big.

If there’s a secret ingredient to the summer-music magic, it’s these student planners.

“The process is unique in the amount of responsibility we give the students,” says Lang. “The Union is committed to using the program as a learning opportunity for them.”

Today’s students work with adviser Sean Michael Dargan — a musician himself — who schools them in every aspect of the music biz. Though Dargan ensures a balance between cutting-edge and crowd-pleasing acts, the series always reflects the committee members’ passions. That’s why, for example, you’ll see the up-and-coming singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza in summer 2022.

You heard that right: the music series is making a triumphant return to the Terrace after the pandemic pause. And just in the nick of time.

“There is this desire for normalcy, and the Terrace is such a special place,” says Susan Dibbell ’84, MS’02, deputy director of the Wisconsin Union. “You’re on a lake in a big, open space, and it’s gorgeous. We’re all craving to be around people.”

In other words, summer nights are about to get hot again.

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Undergraduate Rap Star https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/undergraduate-rap-star/ https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/undergraduate-rap-star/#respond Sat, 28 May 2022 14:45:02 +0000 https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/?p=34035 Matthew Hauri, as "Yung Gravy", poses against a pink background

“A lot of the business and marketing stuff [from UW classes] has really stuck with me and helped me,” Hauri says. John Chiaravalle

Some UW students miss class when they travel for marching band or athletics. Matthew Hauri ’17, a.k.a. rapper Yung Gravy, missed class because he was jetting off for negotiations with major music labels.

Hauri notched the absences in fall 2017, when he was generating buzz with his debut single, “Mr. Clean,” and its exuberant video, filmed in Madison. He wears a fluffy white bathrobe and sways to a sample of the Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman.” He washes a car with bikini-clad women and rides a Sea-Doo in Lake Mendota as the UW campus gleams in the background. “Mr. Clean” has received more than 60 million YouTube views to date and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Missing class paid off. That November Hauri signed with the Universal Music Group imprint Republic Records, home to Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Post Malone. He graduated the following month with a degree in marketing. “It was a pretty crazy last semester,” he says.

Since then he has toured extensively and released a string of singles and EPs, as well as three albums: Sensational, Baby Gravy 2, and Gasanova. He has collaborated with hip-hip icons including T-Pain and Lil Baby. His releases include another solo platinum single, and one with Canadian rapper bbno$, “Whip a Tesla,” went gold.

A native of Rochester, Minnesota, Hauri splits time between Los Angeles and the Gopher State. He started making music in his sophomore year of college, inspired by rappers like the late Gustav Åhr, who as Lil Peep found success distributing his music online. Hauri first recorded beats and rhymes on his own, and later he collaborated with producers he encountered on the online distribution platform SoundCloud. A freestyle rap about gravy led to his stage name, which he styled after the Swedish rapper Yung Lean.

Hauri says his UW education has served him and his music well. “A lot of the business and marketing stuff has really stuck with me and helped me,” he says. “I’ve always been very particular with imagery and branding.”

Few musicians graduate college with a major-label contract in hand. Was Hauri tempted to leave the UW early and pursue his career? “I wanted to say I did it,” he says of finishing school. “But I also knew my mom would want me to.”

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