The Crazy Otto Medley
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The Crazy Otto Medley
"The Crazy Otto Medley" is a ragtime medley, originally arranged and recorded by the German comic performer Fritz Schulz-Reichel under the pseudonym of "Der schräge Otto" aka "Crazy Otto". The best-known version is a 1955 recording made by pianist Johnny Maddox. The opening tune in the medley is "Ivory Rag" by Lou Busch and Jack Elliott. The closing song is "Play a Simple Melody" by Irving Berlin. The songs sandwiched in between these two are pop songs from Germany. The first of them is "In der Nacht ist der Mensch nicht gern alleine" by Franz Grothe. The second is "Das machen nur die Beine von Dolores" by Michael Jary. The third is "Was macht der alte Seemann" (Heino Gaze & Günther Schwenn). The Maddox recording of the Crazy Otto Medley entered the ''Billboard'' charts on February 5, 1955, and spent 20 weeks, peaking at #2 for seven weeks. It also became the first million-selling ragtime record in the United States since Del Wood's " Down Yonder" in 1951, and eventually sol ...
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Ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces (often called "rags") are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. " Maple Leaf Rag", " The Entertainer", "Fig Leaf Rag", "Frog Legs Rag", and "Sensation Rag" are among the most popular songs of the genre. The genre emerged from African American communities in the Southern and Midwestern United States, evolving from folk and minstrel styles and popular dances such as the cakewalk and combining with elements of classical and march music. Ragtime significantly influenced the development of jazz. In the 1960's, the genre had began to be revived with the publication '' The All Played Ragtime'' and artists re ...
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Fritz Schulz-Reichel
Fritz Schulz-Reichel (July 4, 1912 – February 14, 1990) was a German jazz and pop pianist. Schulz-Reichel was born in Meiningen. His father was a classical musician, and he began playing piano at the age of six. He developed an unusual technique where he played the melody of a tune with the left hand and the rhythm with the right hand. While he trained to be a concert pianist, he chose a career in pop music, playing light jazz and pop tunes. He invented a device called the Tipsy Wire Box, which could be attached to a piano to make it sound like an out-of-tune barrelhouse upright. (Another interpretation is that "Tipsy Wire Box" was a slang expression for the piano itself, which was merely "detuned"; that is, one of the three strings that make up each note of the main section of the piano is slightly flatted, giving the piano the characteristic sound.) In 1953 he adopted the moniker ''Schräger Otto'' (Crazy Otto), and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. His tunes became hits in ...
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1955 In Music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1955. Specific locations * 1955 in British music * 1955 in Norwegian music Specific genres * 1955 in country music *1955 in jazz Events *January 1 – RCA Victor announces a marketing plan called "Operation TNT." The label drops the list price on LPs from $5.95 to $3.98, EPs from $4.95 to $2.98, 45 EPs from $1.58 to $1.49 and 45's from $1.16 to $.89. Other record labels follow RCA's lead and begin to drop prices as well. *January 7 ** Marian Anderson is the first African American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. ** "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets first appears on the British charts. *January 14 – In New York City, Alan Freed produces the first rock and roll concert. *January 27 – Michael Tippett's opera ''The Midsummer Marriage'' is premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, conducted by John Pritchard, with designs by Barbara Hepworth and ...
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Johnny Maddox
Johnny Maddox (August 4, 1927 – November 27, 2018) was an American ragtime pianist, historian, and collector of music memorabilia. Life and career John Sheppard Maddox Jr. was born in 1927 in Gallatin, Tennessee. His interest in the ragtime era was fueled by his great-aunt Zula Cothron. She played with an all-girls' orchestra at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and later played in vaudeville. Maddox studied classical music for nineteen years with Margaret Neal and Prudence Simpson Dresser, who studied in Europe for a short time with Franz Liszt. One of his teachers of popular music, Lela Donoho, accompanied silent movies in his hometown of Gallatin, Tennessee. He played his first public concert when he was five and began his professional career in 1939 playing with a local dance band, the Rhythmasters, led by J. O. "Temp" Templeton. Around 1946, Maddox started working for his friend Randy Wood at Randy's Record Shop in Gallatin, where Wood founded Dot Rec ...
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Lou Busch
Lou may refer to: __NOTOC__ Personal name * Lou (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Lou (German singer) * Lou (French singer) * Lou (surname 娄), the 229th most common surname in China * Lou (surname 楼), the 269th most common surname in China Arts and entertainment * ''Lou'' (2010 film) * ''Lou'' (2017 film), a Pixar short * ''Lou'' (2022 film), a Netflix action thriller * Lou!, a French series of comic books created by Julien Neel * Lord of Ultima, a browser-based MMORTS game developed by EA Other uses * Lyon Olympique Universitaire, a rugby union team playing in the Top14 competition of France * Bowman Field (airport) (IATA airport code LOU), an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, USA * Lou Island of Papua New Guinea * Lou language (Austronesian) of Lou Island * Lou language (Torricelli) * Letter of understanding, a formal text that sums up the terms and understanding of a contract See also * Lu (other) {{Disambig ...
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Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights,Starr, Larry and Waterman, Christopher, American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, Oxford University Press, 2009, pg. 64 and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. For much of his career Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other than F-sharp. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance craze ...
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Franz Grothe
Franz Grothe (17 September 1908 – 12 September 1982) was a German composer, mainly for the cinema. His musicals were outstanding successes. He was required to be a member of the Nazi party (No. 2.580.427).Ernst Klee: ''Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945.'' S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 202. Selected filmography * ''The Night Belongs to Us'' (1929) * ''The Last Company'' (1930) * ''Boycott'' (1930) * ''Love Songs'' (1930) * ''The Big Attraction'' (1931) * ''Ronny'' (1931) * '' The Unfaithful Eckehart'' (1931) * ''The House of Dora Green'' (1933) * '' And Who Is Kissing Me?'' (1933) * '' The Girl with the Bruise'' (1933) * ''The Castle in the South'' (1933) * '' Tell Me Who You Are'' (1933) * '' Dream Castle'' (1933) * ''The Gentleman from Maxim's'' (1933) * ''Waltz War'' (1933) * ''The Big Bluff'' (1933) * ''Heinz in the Moon'' (1934) * ''Between Two Hearts'' (1934) * ''So Ended a Great Love'' (1934) * '' Miss Madame'' (1934) * ''Peter, Paul ...
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Michael Jary
Michael Jary (born 'Maximilian Michael Andreas Jarczyk'; 24 September 1906 in Laurahütte, Siemianowitz (today Siemianowice Śląskie) – 12 July 1988 in Munich) was a German composer. Early years Jary's father worked at the Königshütte (Chorzów today) iron works and his mother was a tailor. He planned to become a missionary and went to school at the monastery of the Steyl Missionaries near Neisse (Nysa today), where he discovered his love of music. At the age of 18 he moved to the conservatory at Beuthen (Bytom today). He conducted the church choir and started to write his first chamber music works that were transmitted on the radio Gliwice. The city theatre of Neisse and Plauen gave him a position as a second concert master. In 1929 Jary was accepted at the Staatliche Akademische Musikhochschule at Berlin, meanwhile he made money playing as a pianist at cafés or movies. In 1931 he received the Beethoven-prize of Berlin. During the Nazi years When Jary deliv ...
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Billboard Charts
The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in '' Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, provides additional weekly charts, as well as year-end charts. The two most important charts are the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for songs and ''Billboard'' 200 for albums, and other charts may be dedicated to a specific genre such as R&B, country, or rock, or they may cover all genres. The charts can be ranked according to sales, streams, or airplay, and for main song charts such as the Hot 100 song chart, all three data are used to compile the charts. For the ''Billboard'' 200 album chart, streams and track sales are included in addition to album sales. The weekly sales and streams charts are monitored on a Friday-to-Thursday cycle since July 2015; previously it was on a Monday-to-Sunday cycle. Radio airplay song charts, however, follow ...
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Del Wood
Polly Adelaide Hendricks Hazelwood (February 22, 1920 – October 3, 1989), known professionally as Del Wood, was an American pianist.Whitburn, Joel (1996). ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits'', p.366. . Early life Hendricks was born in Nashville, Tennessee. A lifetime resident of Nashville, she was surrounded by the influences of early country music and the remaining vestiges of ragtime, particularly through the guitar pickers. She took up piano at age five, and played ragtime, gospel, and country music. Despite her parents' best efforts to encourage a direction towards classical music, the environment in Nashville, plus the early local programming on radio, convinced her that she wanted to play piano in the honky-tonk style. Her dream goal was the Grand Ole Opry, something she would realize in her early 30s. Career Shortening her married name (Adelaide Hazelwood) to something easier to remember, Wood began playing in bands and honky-tonk joints in her 20s. After a ...
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Down Yonder
Down Yonder is a popular American song with music and lyrics by L. Wolfe Gilbert. It was first published in 1921, and was introduced in the same year at the Orpheum Theater, New Orleans. Gilbert had written the lyrics for the 1912 song " Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" (for which Lewis F. Muir wrote the music). In "Down Yonder," Gilbert brought back four of the characters from the earlier song — Daddy, Mammy, Ephram and Sammy. However, the lyrics of "Down Yonder" are seldom heard because the song has usually been performed as an instrumental, especially on the piano or organ. "Down Yonder" is an expression meaning "down there" in a geographic sense, referring to a place that is considerably lower in elevation or farther south. In the sense of the song's lyrics, it means "in the American South." Recorded versions Before 1951 Recordings by Ernest Hare & Billy Jones, and by the Peerless Quartet were very popular in 1921. In 1934, the instrumental version by Gid Tanner & His Skil ...
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Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel music, gospel, reggae, world music, and psychedelic music, psychedelia; for Concert, live performances of lengthy jam session, instrumental jams that typically incorporated mode (music), modal and tonality, tonal musical improvisation, improvisation; and for its devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". "Their music", writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in its "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, The Greatest Artists of All Time" issue. The ...
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