WMBR Special Events Calendar

This Month

(BLACK) COFFEE TIME: What's the Story, Oasis?

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What's Black Coffee, a 1949 jazz-pop standard first made famous by Sarah Vaughan, have to do with coked-up Britpop band Oasis? Perhaps nothing. But much as Oasis' entire oeuvre is thinly-veiled thievery of The Beatles songbook, Black Coffee was similarly "inspired by" a 1938 song from Mary Lou Williams entitled "What's Your Story, Morning Glory?" Williams was an acclaimed jazz songwriter and one of the few successful female artists during its infancy. Sonny Burke and Paul Francis Webster knew a melody when they heard one. Borrowing the opening two measures from Williams without credit, they created "Black Coffee," which as been recorded nearly 200 times. But Oasis, likely unwittingly, swiped Williams' title for the name of their sophomore record (although even Oasis historians could trace the phrase only as far as musical Bye Bye Birdie). We'll hear two hours of this song's history.

For more information about this event, contact:
Patrick Bryant
subject2wmbr@gmail.com
617-253-4000

Visit: http://twitter.com/subject2chang