JULY Music Monday

We're flying through July once more, my goodness! Where did the year go? It's Music Monday, let's have a quick look at something performed by artists who bear variations of this month's name.

July is our seventh month (Gregorian calendar). It was the fifth month in the early calendar of the ancient Romans, and called Quintilius, meaning fifth. Roman Senate re-named their fifth month Julius (July) in honour of Julius Caesar, born on 12 July. Anglo-Saxon names for the month included Heymonath or Maed monath (= haymaking or flowering of meadows).

I don't know of a musician, composer or singer whose name is a straight "July". The only person I've ever come across in real life or fiction bearing that name is July (pronounced as Joooleye) Johnson in Lonesome Dove. In the TV mini-series version of McMurtry's novel the part is played by Chris Cooper, who still earns exclamations from me of "Ooh look its Jooleye Johnson" whenever he appears in character parts - which is often.

Musically I'll have to make do with Julian (Lloyd Webber, Lennon, Bream) "Jools" (Holland), Julius (LaRosa) and Julie (Andrews, London, Rich).

Julius, Julian and its feminine form Julia/Julie might derive from a Roman family whose founder was Julus son of Aeneas and Creusa in Roman mythology, although the name's etymology may possibly derive from the Greek, meaning "downy-[haired, bearded]", or from the name of the Roman god Jupiter. (Wiki). Scholars have argued that Julian, translating to “Jove’s child” in English does, indeed, reference Jupiter.

A Julie and a Julian performance then; this Julie wasn't born in July, but this Julian was (15th).

Julie London's sultry version of Bye Bye Blackbird. I seem to recall that men of a certain age used to find Julie very, very sexy.





Julian Bream was actually born in July - here he plays the best known portion of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (one of my all time favourite pieces whoever plays it, ranging between Miles Davis and an English miners' brass band - see an old post HERE).





For good measure, a song about Juliet - another variation of Julia, I guess. This is by English group The Four Pennies in 1964. The lads wander around lip syncing in this rather goofy video.