In 1897 Frank Harding published a Cake Walk version of I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls, from Balfe's opera, The Bohemian Girl. The skies did not fall, but ever since then it has been good publicity: 1) to jazz a well-known classic or dead-serious folksong, 2) to goad a few naive busybodies into protest, 3) to pretend that the incident is splitting the world of music into two opposing camps of foamy-lipped zealots.
Last week Leo Fitzpatrick, doughty Celtic manager of Detroit's WJR and radio adviser to Father Coughlin switched off...
To continue reading: or Log-In