A second trailer for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was unveiled this morning at a fan convention in Anaheim; Dolphin's of Hollywood (pictured) was a groundbreaking record store that opened in 1948, and its story is now the subject of a stage musical; how DJ and producer Mark Ronson ended up working with Stevie Wonder and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.
Mark Ronson takes home Record of the Year Grammy for 'Uptown Funk'
The Grammy Award for Record of the Year went to "Uptown Funk," which appeared on Mark Ronson's album, "Uptown Special." The award goes to the song's producers, which included Ronson, Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence and Jeff Bhasker, who also was named Producer of the Year.
Ronson appeared on The Frame last year. Here's our original post from that interview:
If you're a living, breathing human being, odds are good that you've heard "Uptown Funk." One of the grooviest earworms of recent memory, it sat atop the Billboard charts for 14 weeks and, as of this month, has sold over 5 million copies.
And while Bruno Mars might be the recognizable face of the song, it's Mark Ronson, the man behind the song, who's experiencing a huge boost in popularity.
Uptown Funk video from Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson
Bruno Mars isn't the only famous name on Ronson's most recent album, "Uptown Special." It also features Stevie Wonder, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala and lyrics by author Michael Chabon.
When Ronson dropped by The Frame, we talked about the convenience of streaming services, getting Stevie Wonder to play harmonica on the album and learning how to tell bestselling acclaimed author Michael Chabon to rewrite his lyrics.
Interview Highlights:
The first song from the album, "Uptown's First Finale," features Stevie Wonder. How did that collaboration come about?
That song's really from the genesis of the record. I really loved this producer/songwriter Jeff Bhasker, a Berklee jazz student who's this prodigious piano player, and we started to write some music that let me know that maybe the lyrics on this album were calling for something a little bit deeper than the average thing.
Long story short, I wrote an email to Michael Chabon and I just said, "It's my dream to make the kind of record that shows that you can have weird narratives and interesting stories over groove-based music." He was into the idea and he sent me a sheet of lyrics, like, "Here's the first thing I've dreamed up," and they were wild, amazing lyrics that were so expressive. I could picture the whole scene, but they were quite hard to put to music.
But as I started to read it, the next passage of the song became a melody in my head, or it informed me in its own way what its melody was, which was so bizarre. I've never had that experience before.
That melody ended up being the melody that Stevie Wonder plays on the harmonica, and every time we'd put the lyrics to it or somebody would try to sing the words, it just sounded wrong. I became obsessed, like This can only be Stevie Wonder's harmonica playing this melody, that's all it can be.
Mark Ronson, Stevie Wonder: Uptown's First Finale
That's really strange. So Michael Chabon writes this lyric that suggests this melody that suggests Stevie Wonder to your mind. In terms of creative inspiration, it's just mind-blowing.
It's pretty crazy, and what's really insane is that Michael inspired something and then removed his own inspiration and that's what we have. Going into this album at the beginning, if somebody had said, "Hey, you should ask Stevie Wonder to play on your record," I would have been like, "What's wrong with you? Why would that ever happen?" But because that melody actually inspired it, it was like, Well I have to ask, because this is what this song is telling me to do.
But Michael's an incredibly talented writer — he's worked on screenplays, children's literature and novels — although songs are a totally different medium. What were the conversations you had with him about collaborating as musicians?
In the beginning, I thought that he might just give us a plot or narrative, or maybe he'd give us a couple interesting ideas. It started with sending lyrics over the Internet, and then his first trip down to Venice, California at Jeff Bhasker's studio was the first time we sat in a room together.
I had the melody to the song "Summer Breaking," and we started to write something for that, and he wrote these really great lyrics but the story was kind of dark and weird and I couldn't really express it. The lyrics were great and they matched the melody I'd written, but it wasn't gelling, it just felt like the sentiment of the two were different.
Mark Ronson: Summer Breaking featuring Kevin Parker
We rewrote those lyrics three times, and I remember the first time he went out of the room I turned to Jeff and said, "Is it OK to tell Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon that we're going to rewrite this whole thing because it's not happening?"
Luckily, part of the reason that Jeff's written an abnormal amount of hit records is because he believes in these rules of songwriting — structure, where the repetition comes, which consonant or vowel sounds to end lines on, things like that. It was amazing, because Michael was willingly taking on these insane instructions, so he'd write that was really great and Jeff would be like, "No, man, it has to end in a long 'A' sound, that's no good." And he'd just take it and fire back another great lyric.
In the U.S. alone, "Uptown Funk" has been streamed tens of millions of times. By contrast, the album "Uptown Special" has sold slightly more than 300,000 copies. That's a huge gulf between the number of people streaming the song and the number of people buying the album, so what does that say about where the music industry is going?
I think Spotify and other streaming services have allowed people to hear what they want, when they want, and that's kind of it. So where you used to put your CD in and hit repeat on that one song, there's something that can now tally how many times you've repeated it. I don't know if it's so much changed how many times people enjoy listening to the same song, I just think there's a pie chart for it.
Pop music evolved out of a singles culture, and it wasn't until people like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles came along that people wanted to make albums. It's a bit of a cyclical thing, and to be honest, I don't mind. I don't think any of my other albums have sold more than 20,000 or 40,000 copies, so 300,000 sounds like 5 billion to me.
Are you worried about how people consume music today?
I'm not on the level of Taylor Swift where I can pull my music off Spotify. I deal with it in the way that I do. So you find other ways, whether it's you going out and DJing or touring, or you license your music or those kinds of things. It's not even a defeatist thing. It's just that's how people are going to enjoy music, that's how it's going to be done and we'll all find a way still to eat, unless, even if it is a way that's slightly less than before. It's obviously something that was the inspiration behind Tidal. Although I've never seen a PR conference flubbed up so royally. To me it's just...
You're talking about Madonna's diving over the table?
Just the whole attitude of it. It's like extremely wealthy multimillionaires toasting champagne saying, 'The world changes tomorrow.' And it's like, if you want to do that commercial, what you do is you show the young kid on Ableton in his bedroom making music saying, 'This dude might not be able to eat unless we change the way the game is.' Not like, whoever isn't going to be able to gold coat their Rolls-Royce unless we really change the way things are going.
Star Wars Celebration: Watch the brand new 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' teaser trailer
Thursday morning, director J.J. Abrams, producer Kathleen Kennedy and other creators from "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" held a panel at Anaheim's Star Wars Celebration ahead of the upcoming film being released this December. It's the first Star Wars sequel since "Return of the Jedi" in 1983.
They unveiled a brand new teaser trailer, featuring the original cast. Watch it right here:
"The energy that you guys are throwing our way is evidence of the Force, and we couldn't be more grateful," Abrams said as he introduced the new teaser trailer.
The panel included a number of surprise guests, from both the old generation and the new generation. Before unveiling the new trailer, they welcomed Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) — Harrison Ford, who was recently in a plane crash, did not appear. From the new cast, they welcomed Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaacs.
You can watch livestreaming from Star Wars Celebration all weekend long:
Star Wars Celebration live stream
The new trailer, step by step
The trailer opens with the Lucasfilm logo. It cuts to a classic Star Wars desert shot... with a crashed X-wing and imperial star destroyer.
Then, we get a voiceover from Luke Skywalker himself, explaining the Force:
"The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. My sister has it. You have that power too."
Under that, we see what looks like a melted Darth Vader mask...
... followed by R2-D2 with a cloaked man with a robot hand who appears to be Luke Skywalker touching him, and a lightsaber being exchanged.
Then, a flurry of shots: A fleet of X-wings flies across a planetscape, more Sith lightsaber action, the stars run away across the desert, TIE fighters, the Millenium Falcon and so much more.
And in the end, Harrison Ford:
"Chewie. We're home."
The Frame talked with Silas Lesnick, the managing editor at comingsoon.net, who was in attendance at this year's convention:
Interview Highlights
The Star Wars event is a-four day event and the first time it has been in Anaheim.
It is. I think it goes back to when the prequels started. They started doing this annual show. It's gotten bigger and bigger every year. Of course, with Episode VII, this is the biggest show yet.
What is it exactly? It's a four-day celebration of Star Wars?
Yeah. It's a fan convention. It's put on by Lucasfilm and it's just celebrating everything. The big news today was the trailer, but there's Star Wars video games and the cartoon show 'Star Wars Rebels.' There's a lot surprises still to come throughout the weekend.
How many people are there?
It's tricky to say. I heard there were about 1,500 that actually slept in line last night and J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy sent pizza for everybody that did that. The theater that I was in this morning holds about 4,000 people, and that was packed.
What was the audience response to the second trailer?
People were very, very happy. It opens up with a shot of a crashed star destroyer on this desert planet. From that moment, people were cheering, but it all builds up to seeing Han Solo and Chewbacca on the screen, which is so satisfying as a fan.
What else is happening there in the coming days? How do they fill an entire weekend of programming?
One of the big things that a lot of fans are excited for is 'Star Wars: Battlefront,' which is a new game that we don't know anything about. Honestly, a big part of it is just being around the other fans. It's neat to see kids running up and taking photos with all these fans dressed in very elaborate cosplay outfits.
Dolphin's of Hollywood: the story of a landmark record store goes to the stage
Dolphin's of Hollywood, founded by John Dolphin in 1948, was one of the first African-American-owned record stores in Los Angeles.
Dolphin's was also one of the first record stores to feature listening stations so customers could listen to new records, many of which had been recorded in a studio that Dolphin had built in his store.
The record store and the man behind it are getting more attention recently thanks to a book written by Jamelle Dolphin, John's grandson, that's also the basis of the stage musical "Recorded in Hollywood." It debuted earlier this year to rave reviews and has been re-mounted at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood.
Jamelle and his uncle, Michael Dolphin, recently came by the Frame to talk about John Dolphin's more innovative practices and how the record store got its name — despite not being in Hollywood.
Interview Highlights:
How did Dolphin's of Hollywood get its name?
Michael: He wanted to open the store in Hollywood — he saw the image that Hollywood put into people's minds. But sometimes people don't often know that Los Angeles was officially segregated, and there were places that you could open business or live and places you couldn't do those things. He ultimately found the opportunity in the Central Avenue area, the Renaissance area of Los Angeles in the '40s and the '50s.
So he ended up in South L.A.?
Michael: And kept the name Dolphin's of Hollywood. One of his friends once told me that someone once asked him about the name since he didn't get to be in Hollywood, and he had two answers — the first was that he hadn't gotten there yet. And because he recognized the value of radio, his other answer was, "What picture do you get when you hear Dolphin's of Hollywood? What's the image in your mind?"
Your father also had these amazing ideas, like keeping the store open 24 hours a day and having DJs from KRKD broadcast from the store when no one else was doing things like that. How long was he able to keep the store open 24/7?
Jamelle: Until he passed. I thought it was incredible that he had it opened on Sundays. Back in the '40s and '50s, a business being open on Sundays was unheard of. He threw a "throw away the key" party as a promotion for when he decided to go with those hours.
Your father was killed by a disgruntled who was unhappy that John Dolphin would cut records with him. Why was it important to tell the Dolphin story?
Michael: My dad was killed when I was 9, and obviously Jamelle wasn't born yet. [Dolphin was killed by a frustrated singer in an argument over payment.] Jamelle has a stack of notes about two feet high from the people that he's talked to, and it's like trying to pull all these things together much later in the process. That's when you finally say, "We need to sit down and tell this story, since we've heard it all our lives."
So much of what we know is what we've learned. We didn't get it from my dad, but he touched so many people and there were so many people involved and who were impacted by what Dolphin's of Hollywood was doing.
For probably 40 years I got to just sit with Buddy Collette, Gerald Wilson and Charles Mingus, and one day Buddy looked at me and said, "You know one thing you should really know about your dad? Were it not for your dad, we would have not been heard." That's probably one of the most impactful things anyone's ever said to me: "We would not have been heard." And he was so grateful for that opportunity.
"Recorded in Hollywood" is at the Hudson Theatre through July 26.