Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Folk singer and actor.
On the island
Eight records
Mozart: Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495 (last movement, Rondo)
Dennis Brain (horn), Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan (conductor)
Well, I'm I'm crazy about the uh Dennis Brain uh Mozart concerto. Number four, that that famous one. … I like him. I think that he he takes that instrument and he makes it sing and I think he's the greatest player of that horn I ever heard.
Silent Worship (from 'Ptolemy')
I used to like that song very much because that is the most naive song I think I ever heard. And I'm especially taken with it because with this naïve, beautiful voice of Derek Barsham singing it, that makes it more naïve than ever.
Well, here's an unusual song. Ravishing Ruby. Tom T. Hall. … I've never met him, actually. But he writes some very unusual country western songs.
I was always a great fan of John McCormack. … I like the way he he sang Panus Angelicus, uh Caesar Franck.
Joan Sutherland uh made uh an album with all of the great uh uh the arias … I heard some of them sing, but I didn't hear all of them. But if they could sing like she sang them, well, they must have been pretty good.
And Mead Lux Lewis was one of the uh what they call boogie woogie pianists of the time. … [He told the story of how he named the tune] … she said, What's the name of the tune? And I answered four o'clock blues. And she said, What time is it? I said about four o'clock.
I'm speaking of Noel Coward, of course. And he he was um he was so marvelous. … He ran to me and he threw his arms around me and he said, he whispered in my mi my ear, he said, Oh, you are so good And that was the nicest compliment I that I can remember.
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (from Cantata BWV 147)
I like Bach. You know, to think about that old boy having to write a new tune every Sunday. … This one is Yesu Joy of of Man's Desiring the Myra Hess uh arrangement.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:28Did you have a hard job choosing this miserable allowance of eight records for your isolation?
Uh not really uh very difficult because um I uh went back to the time when I um played records for my own pleasure, when I had time to sit down and give it the kind of attention that uh music deserves.
Presenter asks
4:21Do you come from a big family? Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters? You showed musical talent very early on. Where did that come from? Was there a lot of music in the house?
When I was very small, my father bought one of those old pump organs you know, for the family. And um my older sister learned to play it. … And of course the only thing that they played there were hymns, you know, evangelistic hymns, which I was brought up on. … And I'm the the little one there and I'm piping up pretty good there. … And I guess I must have been the only one singing on pitch. … Because I got a lot of attention and I think is probably why we're sitting and talking today, is my … uh the attention I got singing those hymns, I just kept going along on that.
Presenter asks
8:27So, Burle, you you quit high school, you took to the road to see the world. The time of the depression. Were you doing it the hard way? Were you riding the rods uh under the trains?
The keepsakes
The book
Richard Wilhelm (translator), rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes
The luxury
I will take this spirit again. The spirit every time, but this time is spiritus fermentus.
No, that that's greatly exaggerated. I did ride freight trains, but riding the rods only daredevils did that. … It's hard enough to get in a box car or in a coal car. It's a lousy way to travel. Whenever I could I I I went in the highway. I only got on a train when I couldn't get out any other way.
Presenter asks
16:55Now you mentioned Big Daddy. That of course was in the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. That was directed by Ilya Kazan, wasn't it? He had a big influence on you.
Oh yes, well he gave me my first opportunity in um East of Eden. There had been a point when you were gonna give the whole thing up, hadn't? Oh yes. It was right after East of Eden as a matter of fact.
Presenter asks
24:39How do you tell the old [folk songs] from the new? Or doesn't it matter?
Well, it matters because, um … The new ones, you know, the um … You gotta pay somebody for for doing them. The old ones are not the copyrighted, you see.
Presenter asks
28:42Now, you strike me as a man who can look after himself. I mean, after all, you've been a hobo. Could you look after yourself on a desert island? Could you put up a shelter?
Uh yes. Yes. … I'm not a good cook. I don't like to cook. I'm an eater. Not a cooker. … I have a small boat. Uh I have a uh a twenty foot sailboat. … If I wanted to get away, I probably could build something to get away in. But I don't I might like it there if, uh, you know, if there were mangoes and uh … And some bananas and things like that. I might just uh stay.
“I'd rather hear the birds sing. … and I would rather hear the wind blowing through the trees … than to hear uh most music.”
“My g grandmother sang and my uh father sang, my mother sang, my father not so much. But it was a part of the family uh uh goings on, you might say. This happened all day long, so uh it was something that was never done deliberately, but uh I just sort of absorbed with growing up.”
“There is an old uh tradition among hobos … which I learned very early. … and that is if you have a destination in your mind … And you start out. … Chances are against you. You might not make it. So it's better to just go wherever the wind blows.”
“I didn't get the job, but one fella dropped out and I was called for the next. So there I studied with a man by the name of Raymond Knowle, and I sang plain chant for three years. … And it was very good training and I used that a lot in my uh ballad singing because you sort of learn to float the tone there, you know.”
“That was a disastrous year because I had Big Daddy and I had uh the big country and wind across the Everglades and uh Desire under the Elms and I haven't had a decent roll since.”
“He ran to me and he threw his arms around me and he said, he whispered in my mi my ear, he said, Oh, you are so good … And that was the nicest compliment I that I can remember.”