In Concert: Performing Musical Persona

Figure 1. A Model of Popular Music Performance

Figure 2. Video still of Suzi Quatro performing “Can the Can” on the German television program Disco in 1973.

Figure 3. Laurie Anderson performs “Drum Dance.” Film still from Home of the Brave (1986), directed by Laurie Anderson.

Figure 4. Glenn Gould plays the piano at his lakeside home in a still from the National Film Board of Canada’s documentary Glenn Gould. Off the Record (1959), directed by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor.

Figure 5. Patrick K.-H. and Oleg Makarov, “Live-Acousmatic” performance, Love Live Electronic Festival, November 27, 2009. Camera: Ivan Savchenko, “OK-films” studio.

Figure 6. Jefferson Airplane performing “Wooden Ships” at the Fillmore East, New York City, November 28, 1970. Source: wolfgangsvault.com.

Figure 7. B. B. King sings on Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual (National Educational Television, 1968). Still from video.

Figure 8. B. B. King communes with his guitar, Lucille, on Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual (National Educational Television, 1968). Still from video.

Figure 9. Mari Kimura and GuitarBot perform GuitarBotana at the Chelsea Art Museum, New York City, in 2004. Still from performance video directed by Liubo Borrisov.

Figure 10. Mari Kimura and GuitarBot perform GuitarBotana at the Chelsea Art Museum, New York City, in 2004. Still from performance video directed by Liubo Borrisov.

Figure 11. Michael Jackson strikes a pose just before putting on his fedora to complete the “Michael Jackson” persona before performing “Billie Jean.” Still from concert video, Brunei, 1996.

Figure 12. Darius Rucker assumes the persona of an itinerant country musician. Still from the music video for “Wagon Wheel” (2013).

Figure 13. Carole King personifies the female version of the normative singer-songwriter persona of the 1970s. Still from her appearance on the BBC television program In Concert in 1971.

Figure 14. When playing the theme of “So What,” Miles Davis looks off to the right as if to suggest that doing so requires little effort or concentration. Still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 15. When improvising, Davis looks off into infinity, suggesting deep concentration on his solo. Still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 16. The different areas of the stage. the “dugout,” the “offstage” area where musicians withdraw from playing; the “on-deck circle,” where they stand while waiting to take a solo; and the “batter’s box,” where the soloist is positioned. Annotated still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 17. John Coltrane concentrates on Miles Davis’s improvised solo. Still from The Sound of Miles Davis, CBS Television, April 1959.

Figure 18. Beatles fans attending their concert at Shea Stadium, New York City, in 1965. Still from the documentary film The Beatles at Shea Stadium (1966), directed by Bob Precht.

Figure 19. The members of Sha Na Na form a human “chapel” while performing the teen tragedy song “Tell Laura I Love Her.” The singer at the center is Johnny Contardo. Still from video of the group’s appearance on the German television program Musikladen in 1973.

Figure 20. The continuum on which I have mapped the four artists discussed here to illustrate and differentiate their respective performed relationships to rock and roll of the 1950s.