Discussion on Lip Syncing ... why?? within the Funk, Jazz, Northern Soul, Rare Grooves forums, part of the General Music Discussions at DiscoMusic.com category; ***** Dick Clark was a pretty unseemly character in the record business ....which was not so uncommon ..... Thank God ...
|
#1
April 24th, 2007, 01:18 PM
| ||||
| ||||
 Lip Syncing ... why?? ***** Dick Clark was a pretty unseemly character in the record business ....which was not so uncommon ..... Thank God he stayed away from disco ....I wonder why?? Dick Clark's D-I-S-C-O PAR-TY  but all that's another story ...... I always presumed performers lip synced because it was a cheaper/safer/easier way to perform ... no live mikes to monitor , no sour notes ..... But that was not entirely the reason ..... maybe the least reason .... In his first appearance on the "Bandstand" , Chuck Berry had a fight with Clark. Because teen-age records were so frequently "engineered" and not just performed , artists on the Dick Clark and other TV shows did not sing but merely mimed the lyrics to the playing of their records. There was a financial factor involved."Lip-syncing", as the faked singing was termed , was promotional. Singing was a performance requiring payment.  When Berry was informed he was to "lip-sync," , he declared: "Chuck Berry is not going to open his mouth and have nothing come out." But then, Leonard Chess, head of Chess records, came over and they had a little talk. As Berry later explained "Leonard said 'There are some things you gotta do in the business that you don' want to do.". So we made friends because Dick Clark was held in esteem and he had a lot of power." --- The Rockin' Fifties *****
__________________ +++ Change Gonna Come +++  |
|
#3
July 18th, 2007, 04:54 AM
| |||
| |||
| Re: Lip Syncing ... why?? while teen pop (N'Sync, Backstreet, etc) was popular, many of them said that they lip synced because it was physically impossible to dance energetically and sing well at the same time. Maybe so but the other issue was that lip syncing also often meant the "performer" had no vocal ability at all (Milli Vanilli). |
|
#4
July 21st, 2007, 05:08 PM
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Lip Syncing ... why?? Chuck Berry is widely known one of the most cost-saving, money-hungry performers ever (Ray Charles and James Brown were two others). Legend has it that in bad times, Chuck would tour alone recruiting local musicians in each city to play with him, thus saving the additional plane tickets and hotel rooms. No wonder he pretended to be paid for an activity that was for HIS promotion in national TV, specially when he was young and didn't know much about the biz. About lyp-sinc, it goes back to the glory days of Hollywood musicals and their physic-wrenching song-and-dance numbers.
__________________ It don't mean a thing (if ain't got that swing) |
|
#5
July 22nd, 2007, 08:31 PM
| |||
| |||
| Re: Lip Syncing ... why?? Quote:
That's the sad thing about how things work in the music industry. You can work your butt off to create your art, but in the end, other people make more money off of you than you do. That includes the RIAA, the same people who fought against file sharing. But I am going off on a tangent. Its possible Berry was just trying to save money by hiring locals (which is not uncommon with artists who don't have a set backing band) because he only makes money with his appearances, and has to cover overhead with his own money. He doesn't have royalty cheques to soften the blow. JB was notoriously stingy, but he did get people like Bootsy out there. When they broke free of him, most people didn't do much on their own, and a number of other ex-JBs even had to join Clinton's group. I doubt it was James keeping them down, because he wasn't a power player in the music industry. And by the time the people were jumping ship, his hits were getting fewer and fewer. I'm not crazy about overly authoritative leaders, but sometimes it's that drive and push that brings out the best in their people. Disco Funk |
Linear Mode
