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Mills Music Library B162 Memorial Library 728 State St. Madison WI 53706

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Notes from Underground

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Cuca Records Collection

Container List SERIES I: Manuscript Materials       Box 1 (May 2018 accession)             Music Publishers Agreements – Titles A – Z             Music Publishers Agreements – Release numbers 45s             […]

MEMF 2018: Reformation curiosities

Madison Early Music Festival: July 7-14, 2018. See our display, borrow our holdings!

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  • Aretha Franklin has passed, but she is immortal in her art. While assembling our memorial display, we took note of this text on the back cover of the 1995 reissue of her 1968 LP Lady Soul [COMP DISC 15434]: “If you’ve spent time in the northern hemisphere, you already know the power of Aretha’s voice.” We’re not sure why the writer restricted awareness of The Queen of Soul to one hemisphere, given that her voice was powerful enough to cover the entire planet. #arethafranklin #ladysoul #queenofsoul #millsmusiclibrary
  • DakhaBrakha is back in Madison (from Kyiv, Ukraine) today to play a free show this evening at McPike Park, with Madison’s own Yid Vicious (in which Matt Appleby, our Technical Services Librarian, plays guitar) opening. Pictured: Two of our many Yid Vicious CDs—their 2008 album Dollars to Doinas [COMP DISC 18426], and their 2012 album Amaze At the Plant Hypnotist [COMP DISC 23051], both on Giant Clam Records; WOMADelaide 25th Anniversary, 1992-2017, Adelaide, Australia [COMP DISC 22311 no.124b], a compilation issued with Songlines magazine no. 124 (January/February 2017), which leads off with DakhaBrakha’s song “Karpatskyi rep.” We have ordered more of DakhaBrakha’s recordings. #dakhabrakha #yidvicious #wisconsinmusicarchives #millsmusiclibrary
  • Today is Ben Sidran’s 75th birthday, and the Racine native and longtime Madisonian decided to do what comes naturally to a lifelong performer—he put on a show at @majesticmadison he titled “Ben Sidran’s 75th Birthday Salon for Secular Humanists, Arch Democrats and Free Thinkers.” We pulled his memoir off the shelf and consulted the index, where we found “Sidran’s escape to” under “Madison, WI.” Sidran writes of dreaming he’d get out of Racine and find his city home, and then on page 26: “And then it did happen for me. Standing at my door was J.C. Holly, a junior at the University of Wisconsin and the leader of a little college band called ‘The Natural Five.’ He had heard me play at one of the local dances and had come to ask my parents if I could go to Madison on the weekends and play in his band. And my parents said yes. This was one of the greatest gifts they ever gave me. Sometimes history is made just because somebody said ‘yes.’” That was the Fall of 1960, when Sidran was 17. He returned to @uwmadison the following year as a student, graduated in 1966, left the city, returned in 1971, and has lived here ever since. Pictured: Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music, by Ben Sidran. New York: Taylor Trade Pub., 2003. [ML419 S55 A3 2003, accompanied by COMP DISC 10363] #bensidran #madisonwi #racinewisconsin #alifeinthemusic #uwmadison #uwmadisonalumni #wisconsinmusicarchives #millsmusiclibrary
  • We’re celebrating #internationalcatday with our copy of Harry S. Miller’s 1893 song “The Cat Came Back” (Chicago: Will Rossiter), which is in our Americana Sheet Music Collection [ID: Americana.am4301.bib]. Miller wrote many songs, as his publisher emphasized on the cover, but this was by far his biggest hit. We’d like to think this was due to it being about a cat. #thecatcameback #harrysmiller #americanasheetmusiccollection #millsmusiclibrary
  • What time is it? Leo Season 2018! We decided to eschew our usual celebrations of calendar months, and acknowledge the sun entering Leo (July 22-August 21) this summer. Student employee David J. Jensen has gussied up our mustardy wall with LPs featuring selections by Léonin, the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. There are a lot of “probablies” when it comes to Léonin—he was probably born in the 1150s, probably French, probably lived and worked in Paris at Notre-Dame, and his given name was probably Léo—so we’re going to say he was probably a Leo. Pictured: Messe du Jour de Noël, by Léonin, Ecole Notre-Dame, performed by Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès, director. France: Harmonia Mundi, 1985. [LP 72386] #leoseason #leonin #ecolenotredame #organum #ensembleorganum #marcelperes #millsmusiclibrary