Archive for the ‘Sue & Sunny’ Category

Sunny

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

sunnydoctors, Sunny, Sue & Sunny, The Brotherhood Of Man, Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway, Geoff Stephens, CBS

Listen: Doctor’s Orders / Sunny SunnyDoctors.mp3

Basically Sunny has loads of history. Solo artist, one half of Sue & Sunny (both of whom were also members of The Brotherhood Of Man) and background voice on many, many, many hit singles (Dusty Springfield, Elton John, The Love Affair, Lulu, Mott The Hoople, T. Rex, Tom Jones, and Joe Cocker to name but a few bigger ones). She’s probably on more records than even she can remember – let alone you or me.

Often associated with the Cook & Greenaway writer/producer team, it was their song ‘Doctor’s Order’ (co-written with Geoff Stephens, himself claim to a long list of song credits: The Applejacks, Manfred Mann, Scott Walker, Dave Berry, Frank Sinatra, The Carpenters) that became a favorite for literally months in ’74. As into rock and soul as I was in ’74, the occasional pop track would bite me hard. I was never comfortable that Sunny’s version didn’t become the US hit version, it was better and smoother than Carol Douglas’. Rest of world though, the crown went to the awesome Sunny. I want to meet her someday.

The Only Ones

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Out There In The Night / The Only Ones

Listen: Out There In The Night / The Only Ones OnlyOnesOutThereInTheNight.mp3

Trouble In The World / The Only Ones

Listen: Trouble In The World / The Only Ones OnlyOnesTrouble.mp3

I’m a sucker for an atonal vocalist. So The Only Ones’ Peter Perrett is right up my alley. These two singles are by far my favorites from the boys. Never did get to see them, some arrest nonsense cut their US tour short, the one whereby they were playing my town. Hence not much to say about them, except I still love these records. Oh, hold on, the sleeve pictured for ‘Trouble In The World’ was sent along, at the time, by Howard Thompson. He A&R’d the band, by assignment as opposed to choice. He doesn’t reflect fondly on it all. Whether by coincidence or design, ‘Trouble In The World’ echoes Mott The Hoople, with it’s Sue & Sunny background female vocals. Seems like an HT influence to me.

For reasons unknown, the sleeve was scrapped allowing or forcing the record to be issued in a stock CBS bag. The label was quite good at making pitiful judgement calls when it came to picture sleeves. Unlike in the US, picture sleeves were quite uncommon in England until punk. So what did CBS do? They released a bunch of punk singles without them. Although the corporate waste exponentially accelerated by the time I was employed by Columbia in 1995, it seems seeds were planted decades before. Hey, let’s actually manufacture the sleeves then destroy them, why cancel it in the pre-production phase? Kill another tree. No problem.

But the records speak for themselves. Great stuff. And although spelled differently, you have to admit Peter Perrett was pretty hip to choose, for his surname, that of the great US label, Parrot, which included Them, The Zombies, Los Bravos, Lulu & The Luvvers and Pinkerton’s Assorted Colours amongst it’s roster.