Monday’s inauguration of the U.S. president seemed quite a success. Barak Obama had come from behind to win the November election. He had survived the fiscal cliff debacle. Now all he had to do was put his hand on a Bible and repeat the oath of office to begin his second term. And unlike the flub of the oath line during the 2008 inauguration, it seemed to go flawlessly. Then, Kristin duBois, a master sergeant from the U.S. Marine Band, spilled the beans.
“We all know Beyonce can sing,” she told ABC News, “We all know the Marine Corps can play (the anthem.) We do not know why she decided to go with the pre-recorded music.”
In case you missed it, Master Sgt. duBois was admitting that the so-called superstar singer had lip-synched her performance of the U.S. national anthem; Beyonce had mouthed the words to the “Star-Spangled Banner,” at her president’s inauguration. It was Beyonce’s voice, but she was mimicking the words as the pre-recorded version boomed from the speakers atop the steps of Capital Hill and up Pennsylvania Avenue. Beyonce had faked it in front of her president.
What is it with Americans and national anthems? It’s almost exactly two years ago now when another American celebrity, Christina Aguilera, appeared at the 45th Super Bowl to sing the national anthem. Somehow she couldn’t remember, “O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.” And I’m old enough to remember Broadway singing star Robert Goulet booting the “Star-Spangled Banner” lyrics before the 1965 heavyweight championship fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammed Ali. “The dawn’s early light” came out “the dawn’s early night.”
The concept of lip-synching (or lip synchronization) happens when a performer listens to the pre-recorded sound of the music and matches lip movements to the playback lyrics as closely as possible. It’s a film and TV production trick. It ensures that the quality of a musical performance cannot be marred by a technical breakdown of equipment, remote on-location conditions or a singer’s momentary forgetfulness.
There are plenty of famous instances in the movies when lip-synchronization saved the overall impact of the film. When Christopher Plummer appeared to be singing in “Sound of Music,” he was really lip-synching to a singer named Bill Lee. Sidney Poitier lip-synched to Robert McFerrin in “Porgy and Bess.” And Deborah Kerr mimicked the song lyrics in “The King and I,” while Marni Nixon actually sang on the soundtrack. That’s all well and good – it’s just Hollywood being Hollywood. But what kind of singing star stands out there in front of her president and puts her vanity ahead of the honour of singing at President Obama’s inauguration?
For the record, television adapted the lip-synching tricks of film in the 1960s and ’70s. In those days, when variety shows such as the Dean Martin Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour aired hour-long TV productions every week, the performers came under a lot of pressure to memorize and then sing countless new songs every week. TV producers wanted to grind out the shows faster and faster over longer and longer seasons. Something had to give.
So they began putting lyrics on cue cards (just off camera for the performers to see) and while the pre-recorded orchestra accompaniment was piped into the studio, the singers simply lip-synched on camera. In those years, I worked as a production assistant on the Barbara McNair Show. We recorded something like 150 shows in 10 weeks. So lip-synching ensured that Ms. McNair, the star of the show, could get through all those songs.
One night, however, I remember being on the McNair Show set when we had American ventriloquist-puppeteer Shari Lewis as a guest. Lewis would sometimes lip-synch her song material. But more often she preferred to do the songs live. In those days, the studio sound was captured on something called a boom microphone; a sound technician, keeping the mike just out of the camera shot, would direct the overhead mike to the person speaking or in this case singing. I remember during rehearsal, Shari began singing with Lam Chop (the puppet on her hand). Suddenly, the director Jorn Winther came storming into the studio.
“Stop! Stop!” he shouted, “There’s something wrong with the mike. We’re not hearing every other line.”
It turned out when Shari was singing, the boom mike operator directed the mike to Shari. And when Shari threw her voice to make it sound as if Lamb Chop was singing, the mike operator turned the mike to Lamb Chop. Of course, there was no sound coming from the puppet. The sound of Lamb Chop’s lines disappeared. The mike operator had to be reminded, puppets don’t sing. They just lip-synch.
Maybe that’s what the producers of the U.S. Inauguration ought to consider next time. Hire puppets to mimic the “Star-Spangled Banner.” It would probably be far less expensive and just as believable as a Beyonce lip-synch version.
