September 8th, 2012
Listen: I Need Your Loving / Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford
I
Despite having a Top 20 US Pop single with the edited, cleaner version of ‘I Need Your Loving’ in ’62, Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford always seemed relegated to the non-priority portion of the Fire label’s roster. Two further singles, one entitled ‘Don’t You Worry’ reaching #66, were released but still, they were dumped by the end of ’63. Don Gardner went on record stating he had never earned a cent in royalties from the company, one of the many injustices so common during the period. No surprise then that their presence and coverage on the THE FIRE / FURY RECORDS STORY box set was minimal.
In ’49, he put together his first performing band, The Sonotones, with Jimmy Smith of organ. Smith was eventually replaced by Richard Groove Holmes, who left in ’60. During March of that year, Don Gardner recruited Dee Dee Ford to double on both keyboards and as co-lead vocalist. Their call and response live shows are rumored to have been riveting as can be heard here. The single even managed a UK release on Stateside, with an invaluable deep groove promo pressing that’s basically impossible to top, in my humble opinion.
Posted in Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford, Fire Records, Jimmy Smith, Richard Groove Holmes, Stateside, The Sonotones |
September 2nd, 2012
Listen: Is There Life On Earth? / Kennedy Express
Is
I stumbled on Kennedy Express in some London collectors shop, I think it was 50p. How could the staff not have noticed both the writers and producers were Kenny Pickett and Eddie Phillips of The Creation? Aren’t you paid to know these things?
Better yet, how did I not know The Creation were essentially recording under another name? Bigger fuck up.
Okay, so ‘Is There Life On Earth?’ was released in 1980, when the band were traveling the has-been patch before legend. Not sure if The Creation were ever really has-beens though. Never mind, the discovery was the shop’s loss and my gain.
It was pretty 80′s sounding stuff but the Phillips/Pickett hooks were still obvious. This was around the time when ‘Teacher Teacher’, a song they’d written for Rockpile, became a worldwide hit. Proof there is a God.
Presumably Don Arden, who owned Jet, decided to give the guys a release. Clearly he continued to be an investor, given some seven years later, when Eddie Phillips reformed The Creation, he released ‘A Spirit Called Love’, also on Jet. That was during a brief period when both Mick Avory and John Dalton from The Kinks made up the band’s rhythm section.
Considered disposable pop by those in the know apparently. ‘Is There Life On Earth?’ doesn’t even appear in the RECORD COLLECTOR PRICE GUIDE. Possibly only for we hardcore Creation specialists. I can live with that too.
Again, their loss, my gain.
Posted in Don Arden, Eddie Phillips, Jet, Kennedy Express, Kenny Pickett, Record Collector Price Guide, Rockpile, The Creation, The Kinks |
August 27th, 2012
Listen: Salt Of The Earth / Johnny Adams
Salt
Save your money for a rainy day, an old wive’s tale. It was one of my parent’s commandments. I learned well and let it spill over to records too. In the busy peak years of focusing on work and career, I’d just blag or buy tons of singles, on road trips around the US and UK, as well, out of other people’s collections. By the eighties, even pre-CD, most industry folks were dumping their 45′s, an apparently embarrassing possession. Never understood that one, but certainly was happy with the trend.
Likewise with label sales and promotion reps. They couldn’t unload 7′s from their trunks fast enough. Well I advocated a no single left behind policy, and hoarded every last one, tucking them away in parents attics, in-laws cellars and various garages for years. Finally consolidated them into a couple of locations with all intentions to organize the lot. That was twenty years ago.
So on the occasional Saturday, like yesterday, I undo the locks, and dig deep, going back in time, opening boxes whose contents are complete surprises. One such surprise: ‘Salt Of The Earth’ by Johnny Adams on Atlantic.
Don’t even ask me how this single, or for that matter, Johnny Adams slipped past me all these years. I have no answer. It was amongst a box of untouched, unplayed WEA promos from ’72. I know exactly where they came from too. The local sales guy, Jack Riehle. The heavens above walked me into his life, and I think I became his human recycling bin. Jack would dump trunk loads on 7′s my way regularly. The senses would throttle into overload each time. I’d pull out the obvious ones then box up the rest, for a rainy day.
Posted in Atlantic, Jack Riehle, Johnny Adams, WEA |
August 26th, 2012
Listen: Always Saturday / Guadalcanal Diary
Always
Ever rediscover a single to the point of it becoming a new all time favorite song, the kind you play about twenty times in a row, oddly wanting it to end so you can start it all over again? Love when that happens. And it did earlier with ‘Always Saturday’.
Basically, I’d spent the afternoon digging through boxes of records in my storage space. This, by the way, is pure heaven to me. Forever the hoarder, I’d squirreled away about fifteen copies of this years ago, only to discover them today. So I pulled one out and an added it the play pile. After the first time through on the RCA stacker, I just let the single fly on repeat for a good half hour. A ton of Elektra memories came washing back.
Making for coincidence, Mike Bone called earlier in the week. Cell rings. ‘Mike Bone’ on caller ID. We proceeded to burn up nearly an hour like it was a minute. So pulling out a chunk of Guadalcanal Diary singles a day or two later couldn’t have been more fitting.
Let me set the record straight. Guadalcanal Diary were one of the most fun bands I ever had the chance to work with. Hard working, never a complaint, always smiling, always appreciative. They spoiled me.
This was from the fourth album, the first one they made after I’d left Elektra. Wish I could claim A&R credit for it, but can not. The 45 was on my jukebox for the longest time, and it got played until the grooves turned grey. I love a seriously well played record, they have their own sound to them as well, a kind of lived in ambience.
Well, ‘Always Saturday’ was basically a perfect single, another one that should’ve been a Top 40 hit. Why is US radio so bad?
Posted in Elektra, Guadalcanal Diary, Mike Bone |
August 25th, 2012
Listen: Alice Long / Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart
Alice
Specific probably to me alone, ‘Alice Long’ was right up there with the most named checked California songs of all time. This just reeked of an endless summer. Well that’s how I remember it anyway.
During the 60′s, bunches of records got Top 40 play made by guys a little too old to wear fringed haircuts and Carnaby Street fashions, but did regardless. It was even more noticeable once all the hip kids started to sleep in their clothes instead of iron them. Blame San Fransisco. I seem to remember The Association being in that old guys with squeaky clean threads space, Spanky & Our Gang, and yes Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart too. Despite great records, without Top 40 play, these acts were never going to have ROLLING STONE on their side and therefore basically doomed.
Luckily a few by Boyce & Hart did get heard, like ‘Alice Long’. Occasional singles would come on the air and instantly hit the refresh button, decades before a refresh button existed, like this one for me. We’d be riding around after school, wasting our parent’s gas, radio on, windows down and ‘Alice Long’ blaring out of the dash, all compressed up tight via a mono AM signal. Vivid as yesterday.
Why can’t Sirius do an oldies channel that plays mono singles mixes this way, from vinyl?
Posted in A&M, Rolling Stone, Sirius, Spanky & Our Gang, The Association, Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart |
August 19th, 2012
Listen: Toad Stool / Jim Sullivan
Toad
From what I can uncover, this was a US only release, apparently before Big Jim Sullivan became big.
No doubt, he can’t recall who played on this, although you never know. I hope to ask him someday. I like to think that’s Bobbie Graham on the drums, and from the songwriting credit, my guess is Shel Talmy also produced.
That’s logical, as he used Jim Sullivan on many of his other productions during the period: The Kinks and The Who being the most familiar.
Ever a work in progress, a Jim Sullivan discography could make for a good book. You’ll need to stop down every page of so just to take it all in.
Posted in Big Jim Sullivan, Bobbie Graham, Jim Sullivan, London Records, Shel Talmy, The Kinks, The Who |
August 14th, 2012
Listen: The Flick (Part I) / Earl Van Dyke & The Soul Brothers
The
Listen: The Flick (Part II) / Earl Van Dyke & The Soul Brothers
The
Of Earl Van Dyke & The Soul Brothers’ six Soul/Motown single releases, ‘The Flick’ is one of the lesser known.
Sounding very much like the casual late night jam at 2648 West Grand Boulevard that it probably was, Motown’s house band, as they were, or The Funk Brothers, as they became known, got to record some instrumentals under the name Earl Van Dyke & The Soul Brothers. These guys really didn’t like the commercial records they were required to make by day, preferring jazz instead. So not surprisingly, these dabbles sound not unlike the Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff soul jazz releases from the period, and make for great jukebox ambience.
Let me tell you, there’s nothing like a late Sunday afternoon spent digging through a few hundred Motown promos. Happened yesterday, so I can attest.
This all started at the Brooklyn Bowl 60′s Music & Memorabilia Show. One dealer displayed a Motown white label, and it set me off. To be honest, I’d been waiting a few years to start filing these, Vicki Wickham’s Motown singles, into my wall shelves. It suddenly felt like that moment had arrived.
Yes, Saint Vicki. This woman has performed many miracles in my world. As if giving me her record collection several years back wasn’t miracle enough, she out of the blue rang a few days before Thanksgiving 2010, announcing another multi-box discovery in storage. About a thousand singles from her READY STEADY GO days, completely forgotten about for decades.
“Might you want them?”
I nearly had to make the trip over to hers in an ambulance.
There they were, several white boxes, all stacked, labelled and waiting for me to collect. Plus perfectly separated out, a Vicki VIP section: two boxes of Oriole/Stateside/Tamla/Motown. All organized chronologically by label, then catalog number.
Now I have tripped out on these many times, even let a few friends have a look through, well Phil and Eric, and that’s about it. Duane wasn’t interested.
Yesterday began the process of folding these into the master collection. Playing many and nearly blacking out a few times.
No drug has ever gotten me this high. Not ever. Not any.
Posted in Brooklyn Bowl, Duane Sherwood, Earl Van Dyke & The Soul Brothers, Eric Mache, Jimmy McGriff, Jimmy Smith, Motown, Oriole, Phil Ward, Ready Steady Go, Soul, Stateside, Tamla |
August 13th, 2012
Listen: The Chaperone / LaBrenda Ben & The Beljeans
The
LaBrenda Ben was an early Motown signing, releasing ‘Camel Walk’ b/w ‘The Chaperone’ in December ’62. By the end of ’63 though, with just two Gordy singles on the market, she and her group were dropped, thereby also becoming an early roster casualty. Too bad. Sure sounds like she could sing to me, even have succeeded with some Holland-Dozier-Holland or Smokey Robinson songs.
Years later, this B side gained some traction in Northern Soul clubs. The label eventually repressed ‘The Chaperone’ as an A side, this time on Motown (M 1033) as opposed to the original Gordy (G 7009). In keeping with Northern Soul’s formula of non hit Motown sounding knock-offs though, ‘The Chaperone’ more than fits the bill. Just shy of a real chorus, the metallic thumps and all the right jingle jangles were almost enough to cover for lack of one. Records like this came off the label’s conveyer belt as often as cars did down the street. All in all, ‘The Chaperone’ might have worked if only it had gotten some airplay as opposed to being relegated to the flip.
Listen: I Can’t Help It, I Gotta Dance / LaBrenda Ben
I
Cursed with a seemingly misspelled stage name, LaBrenda’s back up singers’ moniker, The Beljeans, probably didn’t help.
Looks as though that opinion wasn’t mine alone, given they were nowhere in sight on the label copy for their followup and swan song.
No idea who was making the decisions around Motown then, but legend has it Berry Gordy was a major control freak, and he clearly knew a hit. So how did ‘I Can’t Help It, I Gotta Dance’ end up as a B side? I thought lightning never struck twice.
Not only, as with ‘The Chaperone’, was ‘I Can’t Help It, I Gotta Dance’ the noticeably stronger track, the song was about The Contours. And they were on the label for God’s sake.
Posted in Berry Gordy, Gordy, Holland-Dozier-Holland, LaBrenda Ben & The Beljeans, Motown, Northern Soul, Smokey Robinson, The Contours |
August 11th, 2012
Listen: Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe / Mr. Bloe
Name
In keeping with my previous posts about novelty songs, I was playing this a few weeks back during the holiday break. Phil and I had a late one, basically our own Northern Soul Allnighter. It was one of the many singles we’d dug out.
To be honest, ‘Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe’ always sounded average not only to me but every one I knew when originally released years back. My Anglophile friends and I would blag or buy anything in the UK charts, and this was an immediate let down. But once blessed as Northern, the single suddenly had a new glow. The record’s even in THE ESSENTIAL NORTHERN SOUL PRICE GUIDE, so there. Phil says he always gets requests for it when DJing, in England at least.
Listen: 71-75 New Oxford / Mr. Bloe
Name
A collaboration between Mr. Bloe, who were actually Hookfoot in disguise, and Elton John, ’71-75 New Oxford’ became a follow up single one year later. Titled after the address of the DJM Records office, it’s pretty valuable nowadays, both sides being Elton John’s only instrumentals. Luckily, this copy, from Tony King’s collection, still retained the original press release (above).
Posted in DJM, Elton John, Hookfoot, Mr. Bloe, Northern Soul, Northern Soul Price Guide, Phil Ward |
August 8th, 2012
Listen: Hundred Thousand Dollar (Twenty Carburettor Driving Machine)/ Sweet Reason
Hundred
Not a clue who Sweet Reason were, or how they came to make records.
Being a life long Deram completist, I’ll happily pick up any remaining 7′ title not presently part of my collection.
Ah yes, my collection. There’s a obsessive beast. In the case of labels like Deram, it probably doubles as some medical condition, me needing promo and stock copies of both UK as well as US releases. I’ve been known to pace about the house in the early hours worrying about these things. I guess it keeps me out of other trouble, that endless quest.
‘Hundred Thousand Dollar (Twenty Carburettor Driving Machine)’ by Sweet Reason, which never gained a US issue, always evaded me, having passed up a copy at Camden Town’s Record & Tape Exchange in the early 90′s during a dizzy moment.
Oh yes, a home away from home. Camden’s Record & Tape Exchange. I still can’t walk past it without getting the shivers, despite reality: their 7′ bins have shrunken miserably over the years. And the records in them, shabby condition overall, especially the sleeves.
But never say never. I felt ten years younger the moment my eyes spotted this on eBay. It was absolutely going to be mine at any cost.
Complete with the original Gil Sans font, I assumed Sweet Reason would be more of the slushy pap pop the label coined, particularly given it’s 1974 release date. Surprise, it’s knock-off glitter from the litter bin. What could be better, very few labels did formula glam quite like Deram.
I guess they’d pick up the occasional offering from independent producers that walked through the front door for A&R rep meetings. In as demos, out as masters.
Sweet Reason had one more fantastic twist about them discovered first play. Not only did the band sound like The Sweet, they even borrowed their name. Love it.
Posted in Deram, Record & Tape Exchange, Sweet Reason, The Sweet |
August 6th, 2012
Listen: I Don’t Believe It / The Cryin’ Shames
I
Never knew until recently that The Cryin’ Shames released anything other than their three Joe Meek produced UK Decca / US London singles during ’66 and ’67. “I Don’t Believe It’, from ’73, was a few generations later not only back then but even by today’s standards. My guess is the band’s singer, Charlie Crane, who produced this and is clearly the recording’s lead voice, used his group’s original name to attract even the slightest factor of recognition toward their comeback.
‘I Don’t Believe It’ is actually the record’s flip, and basically somewhat better than it’s topside. The mix could have taken this quite close to Northern Soul territory, but was just too off the mark for that possibility. It kind of approaches sonic disaster if truth be told. No one could miss the cheesy ‘Shaft’ wah-wah’s piercing out too loudly at :58. Simultaneously though, the messy mess has become a main attraction for me. I do love these early 70′s UK assembly line shlock 7′s, the kind issued regularly by British Decca especially. If someone had told me Junior Campbell produced this one in a blindfold test, I wouldn’t have blinked.
But out of jail free cards get issued when Charlie Crane’s involved, whose incredible vocal take immortalized his band’s ’66 version of The Drifters’ RnB hit, ‘Please Stay’ from ’61. Admittedly not achieving anywhere near the shimmer that Joe Meek got in his Holloway Road studio for both The Cryin’ Shames and Charlie Crane, it’s still impossible not to appreciate this guy’s voice.
Posted in Charlie Crane, Decca, Joe Meek, Junior Campbell, London Records, The Cryin' Shames, The Drifters, York Records |
August 5th, 2012
Listen: Name It You Got It / Micky Moonshine
Name
My all time favorite Northern Soul compilation, unfortunately available only on CD, is UK Decca’s THE NORTHERN SOUL SCENE. It includes some true hits, and a whole bunch that sonically fit in, but probably weren’t originally very sought after. And through this very disc, I discovered more than a few all time favorite singles: Frankie & Johnny ‘I’ll Hold You’, The Eyes Of Blue ‘Heart Trouble’, Fearns Brass Foundry ‘Don’t Change It’, Clyde McPhatter ‘Baby You Got It’ and The Brotherhood Of Man ‘Reach Out Your Hand’ to name some, and most of which I’ve previously posted.
No surprise, ‘Name It You Got It’ comes in as a top choice as well. According to, I believe, Phil Smee’s excellent liner notes and packaging, Micky Moonshine was indeed the pseudonym of this fellow Chris Rainbow. ‘Name It You Got It’ being his only 7″, and, although never playlisted, apparently the record received a fair share of BBC Radio 1 airplay in ’74. With no resulting sales to speak of, the single was banished to the mark down bins until someone or other resuscitated it’s worthiness on the infamous Northern circuit, a very self celebrated scene of which I personally derive both musical pleasure and great amusement.
So much so was the demand that at one point, toward the end of ’75, Decca reissued the 7″ but mistakenly mispressed it’s A side, ‘Baby Blue’, on both sides of the initial run, despite correctly affixing A and B side labels. So buyers beware. Correct copies have ‘right way up’ inscribed next to the matrix number in the run off groove on the ‘Baby You Got It’ side. Therefore all ebay customers, better verify this tid bit with your seller.
Posted in BBC Radio 1, Chris Rainbow, Clyde McPhatter, Decca, Fearns Brass Foundry, Frankie & Johnny, Micky Moonshine, Northern Soul, Phil Smee, The Brotherhood Of Man, The Eyes Of Blue |
August 4th, 2012
Listen: Tell It Like It Is / Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band
Tell
Here we have a song, ‘Tell It Like It Is’, so perfect via it’s most known rendition by Aaron Neville, that it takes a brave contender to even attempt one upping it. These challenges usually scare off all the competition.
I guess the magic in a strong composition can also be it’s greatness when indeed delivered competently. Enter Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band. Making their mark in the UK back when you really had to sing in order to make records, these guys perfected themselves during those all nighters at London’s Flamingo and such. Covers of current US RnB hits being a priority for the many US servicemen in attendance, if history has been accounted accurately. And it shows on ‘Tell It Like It Is’.
Now here’s a song one of those musically vacant white girls blessed with wonderful black voices should cover. Someone send this post to Joss Stone please.
Posted in Aaron Neville, Flamingo, Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band, Joss Stone, Pye International |
August 2nd, 2012
Listen: Baby Don’t Go / Sonny & Cher
Baby
There aren’t many things as lasting as Sonny & Cher. I stumble on their records via radio or in any public place less and less and less. With the exception of ‘I Got You Babe’, and Sirius XM, their older singles are played literally never.
Wasn’t always the case. ‘I Got You Babe’ hit so big and wide that for a year or more, they were everywhere. Appearances on all the TV shows plus each had solo hits right next to their rapid output as a duo. At the peak, past labels were reissuing worthy songs that had flopped only nine to twelve months prior. Such was the case with ‘Baby Don’t Go’.
Damn if I don’t remember this one like yesterday. It was late winter/early spring and I think for a period, this was played more than the current Atco stuff. The two distinctive pieces that make ‘Baby Don’t Go’ so memorable to me are the rather unlikely but perfect harmonica and mandolin combination plus Sonny & Cher’s signature harmonizing, whereby Cher always sang the low parts against Sonny doing the highs.
And there you had it, timeless magic.
Posted in Atco, Reprise, Sirius, Sonny & Cher |
July 25th, 2012
Listen: Break On Through (To The Other Side) / The Doors
Break
Summer nights in July bring back a handful of records I recall from ’67, when the AM Top 40′s in many major markets were feeling a change in the air and responded to it on the air. Albums were becoming youth culture’s most important statement. I guess the Viet Nam War and the tail end of Britain’s music/fashion invasion created a perfect storm. The 45′s role morphed into a vehicle for edited airplay, and the album became the premier sellable asset for bands.
Nothing could have made me happier. All the drug riddled groups, whose names alone appealed to me greatly, still required a 7″ for radio exposure, often promo only. Miracle.
Let’s be serious, every one of them secretly wanted a hit. Generally, their first few singles became loss leaders, and were therefore scarce even when current. The Doors ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’ being a prime example. Originally released on January 1, 1967, the record got zero airplay initially. But by early summer, it was one of several I flew around the AM dial in search of nightly during the very late hours, after TV had basically shut down.
In small town upstate New York, you hardly ever heard a car driving by past midnight. Every hour on the hour, a New York Central freight train would sub woofer shake our village, but otherwise, silence. Sorry, silence and crickets. All in all a romantic contrast to the pulse of far away metropolises spilling from my transistor radio, which lay permanently buried beneath the pillow. Yes, those AM Top 40′s by day leaned very underground by night, spinning the records which had begun to crawl onto BILLBOARD’s Bubbling Under The Hot 100 chart.
It must be why I associate The Doors with the night. That and Hunter Thompson’s FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. I read that high on acid while The Doors’ WAITING FOR THE SUN played repeatedly, meaning the spindle arm on my automatic changer was left in the upright position, allowing one’s last selection to track endlessly.
To be accurate, WBZ Boston gave me my first exposure to The Doors. When the deejay front sold ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’ my heart nearly stopped. I’d waited six months to hear this record, desperately craved the picture sleeve, and just wanted badly to love The Doors. Good instincts as they turned out.
I never did get that sleeve, well not for seventeen more years. Fast forward to ’84, and I’m working at Elektra in New York. Mark Cohn, our resident runner, tips his head into my office one afternoon, announcing a storage closet full of 45′s had been unearthed and needed clearing. Did I want them?
Turns out the cupboard’s contents were a deep library of every Elektra single, both US and UK, starting with the very first release and continuing through to ’74. Praise be the Lord. Jah Live. Etc.
Posted in Billboard, Bubbling Under The Hot 100, Elektra, The Doors, WBZ |
July 16th, 2012
Listen: Overture To The Sun (Part 1) / Terry Tucker’s Orange Clockwork
Overture
Sick and twisted futuristic London. Sounded like a great idea for a summer holiday to me. So along came a film about just that, and I was in.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE played at the local university’s campus auditorium when current. Not really sure why, but it did, and was curiously well attended by U of R students and the like. Seems everyone left a bit uncomfortable, I know we did. Besides, everyone kind of expected there’d be rock music in this, not classical. Despite that, the film included some non-classical, neo-classical excerpts, sounding not unlike The Nice or String Driven Thing. So patiently I waited on those end credits to roll.
Hold on, Terry Tucker. I was pretty sure I recognized that guy’s name from one of the many prog titles that were beginning to overwhelm our roommate heavy apartment. The bunch of us either worked for the college station, a local vinyl store, the city’s record distributing One Stop, or in Corinne’s case, a combination of them. Makeshift wood plank and brick shelves crammed all the rooms. Yes, it was paradise. We got home, and I dove in.
Sure enough, there he was, that fellow Terry Tucker, a member of Sunforest, and on Deram no less. This was a major discovery. Their lone album, SOUND OF SUNFOREST is an overpriced collector’s must-have these days. Back then, I recall the other copy that arrived simultaneously with mine sat in the import bin for months, getting tatty.
Turns out “Overture To The Sun’ was re-recorded for A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, then doctored up and released on a UK 7″ under the pseudonym of Terry Tucker’s Orange Clockwork. There’s a certain something about the rather bland fidelity of most late 60′s and early 70′s prog records generally. In hindsight, those dreadful drum sounds and their wimpy mix placement have a quaint appeal, and really do the time period perfect justice.
Deram never did get around to releasing this, nor any Storyteller song on a single, and the origins of ‘Overture To The Sun (Part 1)’ became a well kept secret for years, thereby making copies very scarce. Nobody valued, not to mention saved them at the time.
Mine came courtesy of Rick Conrad. He dropped this and a box full of others off when in London a few weeks back. Out of the blue, just prior to my departure, Rick sends an introductory email, having discovered the blog. Turns out he’s planning to be blocks away from where we’re staying while over, only a few days later. Almost scary the way record people end up finding each other. Thank you Rick.
Posted in Deram, Rick Conrad, String Driven Thing, Terry Tucker's Orange Clockwork, The Nice, Warner Brothers |
July 13th, 2012
Listen: Ladybird / Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood
Ladybird
These two were a virtual hit machine for a few years there, ’66 to ’68 basically. We’re talking thirteen US chart singles on BILLBOARD’s Top 100. Even her solo releases during the period were written by Lee Hazelwood, who kickstarted an almost cancelled record deal in ’66 with ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’. By then, she’d been signed to Reprise for close to five years. Despite her Dad owning the label, even he was about to okay the plug being pulled.
Together with Lee Hazelwood, their duets, often initially B sides, got played regularly, and charted as free standing titles alongside the A’s. The most historic of the bunch being ‘Some Velvet Morning’, then and now considered a page out of some psychedelic bible, particularly it’s cold, almost deathlike theme.
Almost as disturbing for it’s chilly minor key, and always overlooked by the media, ‘Ladybird’ perfectly understated Lee Hazelwood’s omnipresent country song formula and once again combined some unlikely musical parts, giving the two yet another hit (#20 US / #47 UK) in late ’67.
Posted in Nancy Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood, Reprise |
July 8th, 2012
Listen: Ham Bone / Washboard Willie
Ham
Roger Armstrong played me ‘Ham Bone’ in ’07. I’d never heard the version prior, but hunted for it ever since. Let me tell you, this was one hard record to find. Forget about price, it was all about a copy turning up at all. Subsequently I’d been searching unsuccessfully for ages, but just prior to our London trip last week, the first pressing to list on eBay in years appeared. Not about to lose it, I put in a crazy high bid, and luck was on my side.
Funny enough, the auction closed while I was in the UK, sitting in Camden’s Spreadeagle pub with Roger himself. No lie. What a nice email alert to get anywhere, but nicely full circle in this case.
By far the most successful version, according the BILLBOARD chart number, is that by Red Saunders & His Orch. with Delores Hawkins & The Hambone Kids. Love it as you will, still Washboard Willie’s is clearly in a class of it’s own.
Having turned professional in ’52 at thirty years old, a very late bloomer even then, this full time car washer’s apparent first stroke of genius was to name his band Washboard Willie & The Super Suds Of Rhythm. Now who wouldn’t want every record they made on name alone?
Originally playing only his washboard from work, his second stroke, by ’55 he added a bass and snare drum, his third. Listen to Washboard Willie’s performance on ‘Ham Bone’, from ’64, and you’ll hear how he mastered a most primal idea, thereby achieving for himself a permanent slot in music history.
He was one fascinating guy with a fascinating discography as well.
Posted in Billboard, Delores Hawkins & The Hambone Kids, Red Saunders & His Orch., Von Records, Washboard Willie, Washboard Willie & The Super Suds Of Rhythm |
July 7th, 2012
Listen: Do You Believe In Magic / The Lovin’ Spoonful
Do
If you don’t subscribe to Sirius radio in NYC, you might need to go to England to hear something like this in your car. It may be far but still beats driving around the US scouring for a decent radio station. Anyway, being in London last week meant I caught this on the air, and it sounded, hate to say it, magical.
The width and variety that BBC’s Radio 2 covers in a day puts shame to US programmers in general. Thankfully, you can stream their stations easily nowadays.
But once was a moment when that looked to be in jeopardy. Seems the BBC is still funded by UK residents, like a tax or some such thing. A few were quite up in arms that non-UK residents got to enjoy the benefit of their publicly funded network for free. I still worry that could mean a block for we US listeners. Yikes.
Every single The Lovin’ Spoonful ever recorded was equal in quality and timelessness to ‘Do You Believe In Magic’. This just happened to be the one that jarred my memory to the fact.
Posted in BBC Radio 2, Kama Sutra, Sirius, The Lovin' Spoonful |
July 6th, 2012
Listen: Cambodia / Kim Wilde
Cambodia
More Mickie Most productions. Boy, am I late on him. Stupidly never pursued meeting up during all those UK visits, searching for producers and what not. Now looking back, he’s risen to one of my all time favorites in the field.
Predating 21st century programmed/dance/electronic/whatever it’s called Pop, ‘Cambodia’ could have easily been a hit for Abba, or written by them even. No shame here in lifting their successful sound, a normal procedure in the days of Mickie Most’s earlier career timeframe.
Of all Kim Wilde’s hits, both with Mickie Most, ‘Cambodia’ captures the Joe Meek haunt, although probably without any intention. But I hear it loud and clear.
Posted in Abba, Joe Meek, Kim Wilde, Mickie Most, RAK |
