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| Mario Lanza |
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| Lloyd Thaxton |
From Alejandra A - May you please tell me all
the history on lip-syncing?
Mr. Pop History - I suspect this has
to do with the recent Saturday Night Live-lip sync controversy with
Ashlee Simpson and Rapper Eminem. Who could forget the Minelli Vanilli
fraud in 1990? Also, singer Mario Lanza was "busted"
for lip-syncing. This occurred on September 30, 1954 during CBS-TV's
"Shower of Stars." Lanza had terrific pipes and there
was concern he was lip-syncing because his voice was gone. It was
his first network debut and somehow word got out that he was mouthing
the words to 2-year-old recordings. Indignant over insinuations
that he had lost his voice, Lanza called a press conference to prove
he still could sing.
Fact is, lip-syncing is very common and has been
for many years. Here's some history and perspective:
A kind of reverse lip-syncing (overdubbing) began
with the movies of the 1930's and 1940's. More pronounced were certain
singing parts. It was/is common for producers to overdub a professional
singing voice.
Some lip-syncing was performed at clubs and stage shows during the
era of the 78rpm record, but these were mainly for effect. You knew
the music was coming from a record.
Then television hit. You began to see lip-syncing during variety
shows. Some of these well-known TV shows, like Ed Sullivan, still
relished an original performance. But most music shows did sync,
including famous teen shows like American Bandstand. During the
60's, teens use to hold parties where someone would lip-sync to
their favorite artist. You would dress the part and the effect was
pure fun. You were only limited by the amount of phonograph records
you had. Some would "sing" and look like Bob Dylan or
John Lennon. Lloyd Thaxton, a very popular teen show during
the 1960's, made lip-syncing a big part of his program. Lloyd himself
would lip sync a hit song and dress the part.
Programs such as Saturday Night Live did lip-syncing through the
70's, 80's and 90's. But lets not forget that music videos are mostly
all lip-syncing.
Clearly, Ashlee Simpson was busted because there
was a major error in the presentation. Some believe viewers should
know if a performance is synced. For the most part, viewers could
care less as long as it looks and sounds right.
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