{"id":1164,"date":"2011-07-28T21:51:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T21:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/28\/how-try-a-little-tenderness-went-from-forgettable-love-song-to-soulful-classic\/"},"modified":"2011-07-28T21:51:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T21:51:00","slug":"how-try-a-little-tenderness-went-from-forgettable-love-song-to-soulful-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/28\/how-try-a-little-tenderness-went-from-forgettable-love-song-to-soulful-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u201cTry a Little Tenderness\u201d went from forgettable love-song to soulful classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/boingboing\/iBag\/~3\/JMmsbiYYt8U\/how-try-a-little-tenderness-went-from-forgettable-love-song-to-soulful-classic.html\">How \u201cTry a Little Tenderness\u201d went from forgettable love-song to soulful classic<\/a>: &#8220;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>On The Awl, an engrossing musical history of \u201cTry a Little Tenderness,\u201d which started life in 1932 as a schmaltzy, vacuous love-song recorded by Ray Noble and his Orchestra. Gradually, over the decades, new singers reinterpreted it, gradually giving it soul in dribs and drabs, leading up to the classic Otis Redding recording (and the regrettable Jay-Z reinterpretation).<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As nice a story as it\u2019d make, Otis Redding didn\u2019t transform \u201cTry A Little Tenderness\u201d from campy relic to anthem in a single stroke. The process was more gradual, maybe more compromised. Bing Crosby took a go at \u201cTenderness\u201d in 1933, and in the process injected some humanity into it. No less paternalistic, his interpretation stressed the duties of manhood, the weakness of women, and how love was about being strong by pretending to be vulnerable. Maybe that\u2019s a little too much psychodrama to pull from a performance that, for all Crosby\u2019s sly phrasing and attempts at straight talk, is still relatively light fare. But it was enough for \u201cTenderness\u201d to catch on as a minor standard, an especially useful one to have in the songbook for black entertainers looking to cross over in the \u201950s and early \u201960s and perform at \u201cclassy joints.\u201d Selling records to white kids was one thing; eons before anyone thought to let youth guide the industry, appealing to white adults was the real meal ticket.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theawl.com\/2011\/07\/how-try-a-little-tenderness-got-its-soul-and-lost-it?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAwl+%28The+Awl%29\">How \u2018Try A Little Tenderness\u2019 Got Its Soul (And Lost It) <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=9ef84090525b5841279b7b8922d6f81f&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=9ef84090525b5841279b7b8922d6f81f&#038;p=1\"><\/a><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/segment-pixel.invitemedia.com\/pixel?code=TechCons&#038;partnerID=167&#038;key=segment\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pixel.quantserve.com\/pixel\/p-8bUhLiluj0fAw.gif?resize=0%2C0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/amch.questionmarket.com\/adsc\/d887846\/17\/909940\/adscout.php\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/boingboing\/iBag\/~4\/JMmsbiYYt8U\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\">&#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How \u201cTry a Little Tenderness\u201d went from forgettable love-song to soulful classic: &#8220; On The Awl, an engrossing musical history of \u201cTry a Little Tenderness,\u201d which started life in 1932 as a schmaltzy, vacuous love-song recorded by Ray Noble and his Orchestra. Gradually, over the decades, new singers reinterpreted it, gradually giving it soul in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfIY-iM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}