Bill Clinton Wins a Grammy

Yahoo News ^ | Feb. 8, 2004 | Reutres

[FairOpinion]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) won a Grammy Award on Sunday, but not for his famed saxophone playing.

Clinton was honored in the spoken word album for children category for a project he worked on with fellow winners, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Italian screen siren Sophia Loren (news).

None of them was at the ceremony to pick up the award for "Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks."

Clinton's wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton (news - web sites), was nominated in the spoken word album category for the audiobook version of her bestselling memoirs "Living History," but she lost to satirist Al Franken's "Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right."

[texasbluebell]

I wish it were a joke, but apparently it's the real deal.

Who could even dream up a scheme where a former president of the US would sell himself like this?

I couldn't.

[Freedom2specul8]

Makes me want to BARF, HURL AND BLOW CHUNKS....really.

[Freedom2specul8]

That's a classic...

[FairOpinion]

"The Grammy Awards, presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), are considered the most coveted of the many contemporary music awards. Despite the honor the awards carry and the ratings success of the televised awards show, many industry insiders consider the Grammys to be merely a reflection of mainstream commercial success."

[texasbluebell]

Hmmm, well, I won't give WJC the benefit of the doubt, he hasn't earned my trust. But thanks for the reply. Very interesting post. He would sell his soul for the almighty dollar, and probably has done so.

[Ben Bolt]

I was kidding ..

[nopardons]

Holy cow............what a list! I suspect that my records may be the oldest ones;though Boris Karloff, who really was a cultured, kind, very nice man, may have been the earliest version. Do you have any idea when he recorded it?

[nopardons]

Any child, who is forced to listed to Clinton's PC rendition, will be scarred for life!

My records are upstairs and I haven't heard them in many decades, but, like you, can still " hear " them in my mind. :-)

Do you still have the records ? Ever listen to TUBBY THE TUBA ?

[thegreatbeast]

Didn't Mrs. Clinton win the same Grammy catagory for It Takes A Village Idiot?

[Victoria_R]

In the new version, narrated by former U.S. president Clinton and called Wolf Tracks, Peter again captures the wolf but this time repents of his act and releases the animal, who howls a grateful goodbye.

Idaho Dance Theatre came up with this variation at least ten years ago. Although I think Peter took the wolf over to Yellowstone Park to live in peace.

[texasflower]

Yes, she did.

[Musket]

That Grammy belongs to Paul Shanklin!

[MississippiMan]

And what's sicker still is that not a thing will ever be done to him or his wife for any of it. Put something like this in a book or movie and it would be laughed at as totally not believable. Classic case of truth being stranger than fiction.

MM

[RightWingAtheist]

Not sure exactly when Boris made the recording, but it was sometime in the fifties. Children, of course, were his biggest audience at the time, since the old Universal horror flicks were being played on TV at the time, and this gave his biggest fans a chance to see the real Boris.

Here are some sites I found. The first is a list of some of Rathbone's recordings including sound clips of Peter and the Wolf. The entire site, by the way, is great, a comprehensive guide to everything Basil:

http://www.basilrathbone.net/recordings/page2.htm

The second is a list of recordings of Peter and the Wolf, done by various artists over the years, listed on the official Prokofiev website. It doesn't list Clinton's version (Which I suggest should be renamed The Wolf Done Gone :-):

http://www.prokofiev.org/catalog/workessential.cfm?WorkID=80

[nopardons]

Since I got my record set, done by Mr. Rathbone, in the mid '40s, then I guess that mine are the oldest. I don't know when it was produced, though.

Many thanks for the links!

[nopardons]

That's it, that's it, THAT'S MY RECORD SET, the one with the dark green background ! :-)

I have a different TUBBY THE TUBA, though.

[Stultis]

In the new version, narrated by former U.S. president Clinton and called Wolf Tracks, Peter again captures the wolf but this time repents of his act and releases the animal, who howls a grateful goodbye.

"Forgetting his triumph, Peter thought instead of fallen trees, parched meadows, choked streams, and of each and every wolf struggling for survival," Clinton narrates. "The time has come to leave wolves in peace."

OH, BROTHER!

French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus wrote the score for the new wolf-friendly version, while former Soviet leader Gorbachev provides an introduction and epilogue.

"In Prokofiev's classic, man dominates, but Wolf Tracks expresses quite different values of balance and tolerance. All of us hope for a future where these values are lived every day," Gorbachev said.

A Rapist, a Red and a Frog. What a trio.

Odd that they included the classic version as well (narrated by a classy lady, Sophia Loren) as that could only underline the pathetic nature of the PC rewrite.

One wonders how the ravenous wolf will be appeased in revised versions of The Three Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.

[Stultis]

"It's the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls, with immense conviction.

"I didn't listen after the first bit, it was so stupid," said Cyril.

Click here for a PROPER story about a wolf (and about telling stories about wolves to children).

[InvisibleChurch]

that's all you need to know about the grammys