It's The Shortenin' Bread Thread!

[The Heartical Don]

OK, give The Don the whole deal. Why is this song so often the object on a scale from absolute derision to religious devotion? Why was Brian at some points in his life so enthusiastic about this ditty? Who composed it (is it based on some American folk song, or a fairy tale)? Why do you like or dislike it personally? Why did it make it onto the L.A. Album? Shouldn't it have been on Love You (e.g. as a replacement for Love Is A Woman, or Good Time?

The Don expects only the very best of you.

[carl r]

Don, I bear little by way of revelation. But would it not be fair to say that Brian likes what he calls his 'negro spirituals' - which can include pseudo-negro spirituals, ie Tin Pan Alley tunes in the style of black plantation workers. It's kind of topical to note that 'Porgy and Bess' has been divisive in its portrayal of black people and their music, however sympathetic the Gershwins' intentions. I remember him describing 'That Lucky Old Sun' as an old negro song, and whilst 'Shortenin' Bread' is actually the real deal, it's the style he likes, I guess, loads of repetition and subtle variations. Religious devotion may bear some relevance, as learning music as a child it would be pretty strange, maybe, if he'd never come across some of the tracks featured in 'Slave Songs of the United States.'

America's Band, indeed....

[The Heartical Don]

Don, I bear little by way of revelation. But would it not be fair to say that Brian likes what he calls his 'negro spirituals' - which can include pseudo-negro spirituals, ie Tin Pan Alley tunes in the style of black plantation workers. It's kind of topical to note that 'Porgy and Bess' has been divisive in its portrayal of black people and their music, however sympathetic the Gershwins' intentions. I remember him describing 'That Lucky Old Sun' as an old negro song, and whilst 'Shortenin' Bread' is actually the real deal, it's the style he likes, I guess, loads of repetition and subtle variations. Religious devotion may bear some relevance, as learning music as a child it would be pretty strange, maybe, if he'd never come across some of the tracks featured in 'Slave Songs of the United States.'

America's Band, indeed....

So it's an old standard for African Americans then? BTW: is the term 'blacks' still in use in the U.S.A. or is it seen as derogeratory?

[c-man]

"Blacks" is more acceptable these days than "Negroes", but not as politically correct as "African-Americans", but that's kinda a mouthful.  I would think that "Afro-Americans", which is slightly easier to say, would catch on someday, especially since it's pretty much the equivalent of "Anglo-Americans".

[carl r]

Yeah, Brian seems oblivious to the 'kerfuffle' surrounding these reference terms, but I've seen his use of the word 'Negro' replaced on more than one occasion with 'Afro-American' when a magazine or newspaper has gone to print. Could this be his handlers/wife? It's funny really, he lived through the 60s but after a certain point didn't really draw from it, perhaps?

Having said that, Van Dyke Parks is another one who has made very politically incorrect remarks on occasion, but with VDP - he was probably drawing attention to a degree of hypocrisy. Which is I guess my main problem with political correctness, that I welcome people not being abused or belittled, but at the same time, a focus on language seems to be an easy conduit, an avoidance of harder questions.

Anyway, Shortenin' Bread - for me it's a wholesome song thats seems to have unwholesome undertones. I remember it cropping up in the film 'Trainspotting' - and possibly the book - when the 'hero' was acquitted, yet just before he OD'd.

[PongHit]

Wiki says:



"Shortnin' Bread" (also spelled "Shortenin' Bread" or "Short'nin' Bread") is often thought of as a traditional Negro plantation song. However the first version was written by James Whitcomb Riley in 1900. His song was named "A Short'nin' Bread Song — Pieced Out", the chorus of which is:

Fotch dat dough fum the kitchin-shed —
Rake de coals out hot an' red —
Putt on de oven an' putt on de led ,—
Mammy's gwineter cook som short'nin' bread.

Titled "Shortened Bread", E.C. Perrow published the first folk version of this song in 1915, which he collected from East Tennessee in 1912. The folk version of the song — as with Riley's — does not have any distinct theme, but consists of various floating lyrics, some relating to shortnin' bread, some not. The traditional chorus associated with the folk song goes:

Mammy's little baby loves short'nin', short'nin',
Mammy's little baby loves short'nin' bread

Shortening bread is a fried batter bread, the ingredients of which include corn meal, flour, hot water, eggs, baking powder, milk and shortening.

Gid Tanner and the singer Lawrence Tibbett recorded popular versions of the song, as did Al Jolson. Another version was featured in the 1937 film Maytime, as sung by Nelson Eddy.

On 14 October 1960, Paul Chaplain and his Emeralds' version became the first #1 record on the WLS Silver Dollar Survey.

The tune for a significant portion of "The Happy Organ" bears a strong resemblance to the "Shortenin' Bread" tune.

Nelson Eddy, as Willie the Operatic Whale, sings the tune in the 1946 Disney animated feature Make Mine Music.

Donald Duck sings the song while making pancakes in the 1948 animated short Three for Breakfast.

In the Season 4 I Love Lucy episode "Ethel's Home Town", Ethel Mertz performs the song onstage.

In the Elvis Presley song "Clambake", "Shortnin' Bread" is paraphrased as "Mama's little baby loves clambake clambake, mama's little baby loves clambake too".

In the Warner Bros. cartoon, Hare Tonic, Elmer and Bugs take turns singing the song, replacing "shortnin' bread" with "wabbit stew".

[The Heartical Don]

Thanks! Really intesting... it wouldn't surprise me if Brian learned about the tune from Van Dyke Parks, who has a firm interest in folk songs, the history of Afro-Americans, the South in general, and hey, VDP even mentions the name of Lawrence Tibbett on 'Discover America' (in his ode to Bing Crosby).

[Menace Wilson]

I'd be careful with "Afro-Americans" too, btw.  When Michael Richards (Kramer) went on Letterman to apologize during that whole racist outburst controversy, his use of the term resulted in laughs from the crowd.  It can come across as awkward and as if the speaker is trying too hard.  In my experience, "black" is still the most commonly used term.

Interesting to read that stuff about Shortenin Bread...coupled with BW's interest in Old Man River and That Lucky Old Sun, it doesn't seem as weird/random.

[Domino]

Wiki says:

Donald Duck sings the song while making pancakes in the 1948 animated short Three for Breakfast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mRMUkS6psk At 1.24

[The Heartical Don]

I'd be careful with "Afro-Americans" too, btw.  When Michael Richards (Kramer) went on Letterman to apologize during that whole racist outburst controversy, his use of the the term resulted in laughs from the crowd.  It can come across as awkward and as if the speaker is trying too hard.  In my experience, "black" is still the most commonly used term.

Interesting to read that stuff about Shortenin Bread...coupled with BW's interest in Old Man River and That Lucky Old Sun, it doesn't seem as weird/random.

Point taken, thanks. I have discussed this with a friend of mine, a professor from Canada. He told me that Indians were called Native Americans, and that was eventually replaced with First Nation Americans. Sounds all very cumbersome, with overtones of belated and meek excuses (to this writer at any rate).

Just like: vertically challenged, for short people.

[Myk Luhv]

I highly recommend Where Dead Voices Gather by Nick Tosches for those of you interested in the influence of the American minstrel tradition on music history. He acknowledges that it is obviously racist but to suggest it is merely that and to then excise it from consciousness is a terrible wrongdoing because minstrelry -- the "coon song" [often, but not exclusively, written by white people portraying stereotypical characterisations of blacks (e.g. "Old Man River," "Old Folks At Home," "All Coons Look Alike To Me," &c.] and its sundry racial variations (i.e. "wop songs," medicine show music, and so on) -- were extraordinarily influential to popular music as it came to be in the mid-to-late 20th century: rock and roll, jazz, country, rhythm and blues, and so forth. The book began as a biography of Emmett Miller, a blackface minstrel performer who had recorded various platters for Okeh in the 1920s and '30s. During the course of Tosches' research for his books on country music and pre-Elvis rock and roll he had come across Miller as having influenced both histories -- unfortunately, there was nothing much known about Miller at the time except that his version of "Lovesick Blues" (1928) was the basis for Hank Williams's version. This sent Tosches on a five-year-long journey to find out precisely who Emmett Miller was, and in the course of doing this, the history of minstrelry and 20th century American music history at large. It is not so much an apologia for minstrelry's racism but is rather a look at its bona fide cultural and musical significance that most people, aware only of its racist nature, tend to overlook out of ignorance. Although I thought his comments on the racist nature of minstrelry did leave something to be desired (he argued that it was but a masquerade and so long as one does not adopt this as their actual self, it's fine) and seems to too easily elide the fact that minstrelry was problematic because it reinforced these views as natural and "just so," I reckon that was not the scope or intention of his book, and he left it to the reader to figure out why blackface and racist caricatures of blacks was an obviously Bad Thing™.

[The Heartical Don]

I highly recommend Where Dead Voices Gather by Nick Tosches for those of you interested in the influence of the American minstrel tradition on music history. He acknowledges that it is obviously racist but to suggest it is merely that and to then excise it from consciousness is a terrible wrongdoing because minstrelry -- the "coon song" [often, but not exclusively, written by white people portraying stereotypical characterisations of blacks (e.g. "Old Man River," "Old Folks At Home," "All Coons Look Alike To Me," &c.] and its sundry racial variations (i.e. "wop songs," medicine show music, and so on) -- were extraordinarily influential to popular music as it came to be in the mid-to-late 20th century: rock and roll, jazz, country, rhythm and blues, and so forth. The book began as a biography of Emmett Miller, a blackface minstrel performer who had recorded various platters for Okeh in the 1920s and '30s. During the course of Tosches' research for his books on country music and pre-Elvis rock and roll he had come across Miller as having influenced both histories -- unfortunately, there was nothing much known about Miller at the time except that his version of "Lovesick Blues" (1928) was the basis for Hank Williams's version. This sent Tosches on a five-year-long journey to find out precisely who Emmett Miller was, and in the course of doing this, the history of minstrelry and 20th century American music history at large. It is not so much an apologia for minstrelry's racism but is rather a look at its bona fide cultural and musical significance that most people, aware only of its racist nature, tend to overlook out of ignorance. Although I thought his comments on the racist nature of minstrelry did leave something to be desired (he argued that it was but a masquerade and so long as one does not adopt this as their actual self, it's fine) and seems to too easily elide the fact that minstrelry was problematic because it reinforced these views as natural and "just so," I reckon that was not the scope or intention of his book, and he left it to the reader to figure out why blackface and racist caricatures of blacks was an obviously Bad Thing™.

Superb recommendation, I will seek out that one. Tosches is a great writer. I did not know this book existed... and you raise some very interesting points. I recall reading 'TinTin In Africa', in which black people were depicted as almost non-verbal, dancing simpletons. I was perhaps 9 years old then, and the concept of racism did not exist in my mind.
Contrary to what the cultural elite pretends, the book did not influence my look on non-white people at all. There were Chinese in our town, and some black people, and also folks from Turkey and Morocco. I found them exotic, but at no point did that comic book's content trickle through in my perception of foreigners.

Yet in the '70s, TinTin's creator got under heavy flak for something he produced decades earlier. Something tells me that was very unfair.

[Rich Panteluk]

I am by no means a representative of the PC police but I am a junior high (grade 7, 8, 9) teacher here in Canada.

After the terms Indian and Natives fell by the wayside, we are currently encouraged to use the term "First Nation" or "First Nations" (not First Nations AMERICAN) to refer to Canada's indigenous people.  First Nation is the term used in all of our current textbooks.

Also black is not used in our reference materials but rather African American.

I'm no expert on current PC terminology but just thought I'd point out what terms are currently favored in Canadian education.

[Fun Is In]

Thanks! Really intesting... it wouldn't surprise me if Brian learned about the tune from Van Dyke Parks, who has a firm interest in folk songs, the history of Afro-Americans, the South in general, and hey, VDP even mentions the name of Lawrence Tibbett on 'Discover America' (in his ode to Bing Crosby).

Even as late as the early 60s when I was in grade school on the west coast of the US, this song was still sung by white kids in school, at home, on TV.....Brian likely learned it from the general culture long before he met VDP.

[Jason Penick]

Sorry to bump this old topic, but it seems like the proper thread to sort out the many variations of everyone's favorite song, "Shortenin Bread".

Courtesy of Andrew Doe, we know that the 1973 version (intended for Spring) is the same as the Adult/ Child version minus Carl's vocal.

Next, we have "Brian's Jam (Shortenin' Bread)", dated 3/2/74 on the Bellagio site. Has this been leaked?

Adult/ Child version as I just stated is the Spring version, plus a new Carl vocal. Was the lead vocal cut during the Adult/ Child era ca. 1976?

L.A. version obviously is out there.

"Curt Becher remix". It's been awhile since I've bothered to listen, but I seem to recall it being pretty similar to the others. I'm guessing this dates back to Becher's involvement with the group ca. the "Here Comes the Night" 12".

"New instrumental track", ca. 1980. Why were they going to re-cut this if it had already come out on the Light Album? My theory is this is actually the track to something else and the bootleggers just labelled it "Shortenin' Bread" because it resembled it. Who knows though.

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere and I missed it. Anybody want to try to suss through this with me?

[Andrew G. Doe]

"New instrumental track", ca. 1980. Why were they going to re-cut this if it had already come out on the Light Album? My theory is this is actually the track to something else and the bootleggers just labelled it "Shortenin' Bread" because it resembled it. Who knows though.

I knows. Much faster - almost frenetic - synth based version, no vocal. Just Brian, no other band involvement.

[Jason Penick]

Andrew do you know when Carl cut his lead vocal on the Spring track?

Listening to the KTSA-era "Shortenin'" right now. Got some nice Moog bass going on.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Sure, during the Adult/Child sessions: the bass vocal is Brian, btw.

[Jason Penick]

Sure, during the Adult/Child sessions: the bass vocal is Brian, btw.

Thanks! I had read somewhere it was Dennis doing bass duties. Or maybe that was the LA version? All these factoids are starting to run together in my old age. 

[leggo of my ego]

Don, I bear little by way of revelation. But would it not be fair to say that Brian likes what he calls his 'negro spirituals' - which can include pseudo-negro spirituals, ie Tin Pan Alley tunes in the style of black plantation workers. It's kind of topical to note that 'Porgy and Bess' has been divisive in its portrayal of black people and their music, however sympathetic the Gershwins' intentions. I remember him describing 'That Lucky Old Sun' as an old negro song, and whilst 'Shortenin' Bread' is actually the real deal, it's the style he likes, I guess, loads of repetition and subtle variations. Religious devotion may bear some relevance, as learning music as a child it would be pretty strange, maybe, if he'd never come across some of the tracks featured in 'Slave Songs of the United States.'

America's Band, indeed....

So it's an old standard for African Americans then? BTW: is the term 'blacks' still in use in the U.S.A. or is it seen as derogeratory?

 I wouldve thought the word "Mammy" would have been the give away. Oh you brits! 

[leggo of my ego]

Thanks! Really intesting... it wouldn't surprise me if Brian learned about the tune from Van Dyke Parks, who has a firm interest in folk songs, the history of Afro-Americans, the South in general, and hey, VDP even mentions the name of Lawrence Tibbett on 'Discover America' (in his ode to Bing Crosby).

Even as late as the early 60s when I was in grade school on the west coast of the US, this song was still sung by white kids in school, at home, on TV.....Brian likely learned it from the general culture long before he met VDP.

If Brian watched TV he heard from there. I was around in the 60's and heard it on TV numerous times.

[smilethebeachboysloveyou]

Thanks! Really intesting... it wouldn't surprise me if Brian learned about the tune from Van Dyke Parks, who has a firm interest in folk songs, the history of Afro-Americans, the South in general, and hey, VDP even mentions the name of Lawrence Tibbett on 'Discover America' (in his ode to Bing Crosby).

Even as late as the early 60s when I was in grade school on the west coast of the US, this song was still sung by white kids in school, at home, on TV.....Brian likely learned it from the general culture long before he met VDP.

If Brian watched TV he heard from there. I was around in the 60's and heard it on TV numerous times.

I've known the song for as long as I can remember; for the life of me, I couldn't tell you where I first heard it, though.  I think it's a song everyone in the US gets exposed to, and from pretty early on (I grew up in the '90s, so I don't think it's just a generational thing).

[alf wiedersehen]

Thanks! Really intesting... it wouldn't surprise me if Brian learned about the tune from Van Dyke Parks, who has a firm interest in folk songs, the history of Afro-Americans, the South in general, and hey, VDP even mentions the name of Lawrence Tibbett on 'Discover America' (in his ode to Bing Crosby).

Even as late as the early 60s when I was in grade school on the west coast of the US, this song was still sung by white kids in school, at home, on TV.....Brian likely learned it from the general culture long before he met VDP.

If Brian watched TV he heard from there. I was around in the 60's and heard it on TV numerous times.

I've known the song for as long as I can remember; for the life of me, I couldn't tell you where I first heard it, though.  I think it's a song everyone in the US gets exposed to, and from pretty early on (I grew up in the '90s, so I don't think it's just a generational thing).

I, for one, had never heard the song before listening to the Beach Boy version.

[jabba2]

I make short bread mixing flour, butter flavored crisco and sugar in the overn for 40 mins.. It tastes and smells good but looks kind of simple/unappetizing. Probably not the healthiest snack either. Maybe replace the sugar with Cornmeal like the earlier recipe written above. My favorite version of Shortnin' Bread is by the Cramps.

[job]

I'd be careful with "Afro-Americans" too, btw.  When Michael Richards (Kramer) went on Letterman to apologize during that whole racist outburst controversy, his use of the the term resulted in laughs from the crowd.  It can come across as awkward and as if the speaker is trying too hard.  In my experience, "black" is still the most commonly used term.

Interesting to read that stuff about Shortenin Bread...coupled with BW's interest in Old Man River and That Lucky Old Sun, it doesn't seem as weird/random.

Point taken, thanks. I have discussed this with a friend of mine, a professor from Canada. He told me that Indians were called Native Americans, and that was eventually replaced with First Nation Americans. Sounds all very cumbersome, with overtones of belated and meek excuses (to this writer at any rate).

Just like: vertically challenged, for short people.

I've worked with and for various tribes and they have told me point blank that they prefer to be called Indians.  It's the white people that create all the hysteria over what various races should be called.