Anya's Blog for Musical Explorations!

  Some Background     Robert Nesta Marley was born February 6, 1945, in the rural town of Nine Miles located in St. Ann, Jamaica. He grew up and attended school in Nine Miles during his early childhood and preadolescent years. This is also where he developed a friendship with Neville "Bunny" Livingston as they both shared a passion for music. Bunny was also the one to inspire Marley to learn to play the guitar ( Biography ). Trench Town     Marley moved to Kingston as a teenager where he lived in Trench Town, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, and served as a pivotal moment in his music career. Marley struggled with poverty but was able to serve in an apprenticeship as a welder. It was at this apprenticeship where the unique sound of Bob Marley was cultivated and developed. He was exposed to different music genres that would go on to influence his sound. The first notable genre was Ska, a combination of Caribbean mento and calypso with jazz, rhythm, and bl...

      Burlesque is a musical movie that was released in 2010 and was directed by Steve Antin. The film stars Christina Aquilera, Cher, and several other notable actors/singers. The movie follows the cliché storyline where Ali (Aguilera), a small-town girl from Iowa moves to Los Angeles to make it big as a performer. Cher plays Tess who is the owner of the Burlesque Lounge which is facing foreclosure by the bank. The music for the film is the result of a huge conglomerate of writers with each song having its own set of composers. However, the majority of the songs are performed by either Christina Aguilera or Cher ( IMDb ). The piece I want to delve into further is called "Bound To You" which was one of the three original songs which Christina Aguilera contributed to the film. It was written by Christina Aguilera, Sia Furler, and Samuel Dixon who also produced the piece ( Wikipedia ).     "Bound To You" serves as the part of the story where the main character, Al...

Introduction       Whitney Houston led an iconic musical career that was so successful that even younger generations know who she was or have heard some of her work. Despite her popularity, many are still surprised (including me) when they find out that Whitney generally did not write her own songs. However, she had co-written with several great songwriters so her perspective was still included in the pieces. Biography     Whitney Houston was born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey. From the beginning, it could be said that Whitey was destined for musical greatness as her mother was Cissy Houston, who rose to fame in the Drinkards gospel quartet. She was also first cousins with Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, who have both achieved successful independent musical careers. In her teens, Whitney was already very active in the music scene and was performing throughout New York City in the '70s and early '80s. One fateful evening in 1983, Arista Records producer, ...