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Spectropop - Digest Number 1138



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               SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop!
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There are 19 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

      1. Re: Teddy Randazzo R.I.P.
           From: Phil Chapman 
      2. Ronny & Daytonas
           From: Kingsley Abbott 
      3. RIPs
           From: Peter Lerner 
      4. Woman or a man
           From: Paul Woods 
      5. Re: Canadian Re-issues
           From: Mikey 
      6. Re: Unreleased Partridge Family
           From: Mikey 
      7. Re: Bee Gees & White Soul
           From: Peter Lerner 
      8. Gurus Play Bonner & Gordon
           From: Roland 
      9. Re: Bee Gees & White Soul
           From: Shawn Baldwin"
     10. Gaudio/Gazette
           From: Stuart Miller 
     11. Randazzo; Bee Gees; Presley; Beatles; more
           From: Bob Rashkow 
     12. William DeVaughan
           From: Mike Edwards 
     13. Tunesmith - Jimmy Webb CD
           From: Richard Havers 
     14. Another gay song?
           From: Andrew Jones 
     15. Re: Bob Seger
           From: Stephane Rebeschini 
     16. Re: Modern Doo Wop
           From: Kevin 
     17. Re: 4 Seasons' "Gazette"
           From: Rob Stride 
     18. Re: Shortest track of all time
           From: Bryan 
     19. Re: Gaudio/Gazette
           From: Rob Stride 


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Message: 1 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 18:03:57 -0000 From: Phil Chapman Subject: Re: Teddy Randazzo R.I.P. Mike Rashkow: > ...I remember him bringing in Little Anthony and The Imperials > and doing the background parts to a thing he wrote with Vicki > Pike called "Trick Or Treat". Very tough parts and he taught > them to the boys out in the hall by singing the lines to them. Mick: > Good to hear he was a nice fella. Unfortunately, most non-experts > have never hear of him. No doubt, if he'd been an unscrupulous, > power crazed headcase, he'd have been a household name. Oh well. > Visit musica to hear another of his great creations, "Lonely Girl" > from "The Elegant Sound Of The Royalettes" LP of 1966: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spectropop/files/musica/ Also good to see mention of the often overlooked Royalettes, Teddy Randazzo's flagship girlgroup. Though Sheila Ross's flugel-like vocal timbre was not to everyone's taste, it was a perfect vehicle for TR's unique blend of Bacharach and Rogers & Hammerstein. Their original version of "It's Gonna Take A Miracle" is still my preferred choice. There's a CD of some of their MGM cuts available at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/wszo including the Bill Medley written and produced "He Is My Man". I tend to agree that had TR been a little more pushy, then he could have been more successful commercially, but would he have been capable of such sensitive melody and unashamed romanticism? I was quite surprised at the amount of 45s of Teddy Randazzo (& The Dazzlers) that were released in the UK in the early 60s. They're mostly in the teen-idol vein. Although not a particularly standout track, "Echoes", his last 45 on ABC, has writer credits of Goffin-Weil-King. My personal favourites are his two near-Northern cuts on DCP: "You Don't Need A Heart" and his own version of Little Anthony's "You're Not That Girl Anymore", the better version IMHO. It would probably clog up musica to play the lot, so for a short while my mini-tribute to Teddy Randazzo can be heard at http://www.amajor.com/randazzo and for you version-hungry Northern buds, there's "Better Use Your Head" by Marion Ryan (mother of Paul & Barry). Phil -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 2 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:49:08 -0000 From: Kingsley Abbott Subject: Ronny & Daytonas Paul Bryant: > Dear Spectropoppers, I have an old tape of a single by Ronny and the > Daytonas - Winter Weather and the flipside is Young - both great > little songs. Any chance this material has ever been rereleased? They weren't on either the Sundazed or Arista collections, but they did turn up on a bootleg, supposedly out of Germany, in 1995 called 'Beachland' which did include much of that later material and the Buzz & Bucky 'Tiger-a-Go-Go' track. Kingsley -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 3 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 13:51:47 -0000 From: Peter Lerner Subject: RIPs RIP Don Gibson and Arthur Conley too, in recent days. Sad times. Peter -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 4 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 14:32:24 -0000 From: Paul Woods Subject: Woman or a man Bill George wrote: > Another song in this vein is "Woman or a Man" by Michel Doucet > and Cajun Brew. It's cajun pop, and is about a guy who is > dancing with a "woman" and he notices "she" has a beard, but > doesn't care since "she" kisses so good. He takes her home and > she robs him, and her wig falls off. But still the guy didn't > care. Pretty funny song, in the vein of the Kinks' Lola. Worth mentioning that this song is by the wonderful Richard Thompson; he has his own version (on Small Town Romance), and also appears on the Doucet album you mention. Another transgender snippet from his oeuvre is this one (from "Hokey Pokey"): "Fellas in the alley all look like girls With the lipstick and the high-heeled shoes Feel so pretty and the boys all say That they know just what to do That they know just what to do..." The song, as a whole uses licking ice cream as a metaphor for fellatio. Really catchy, too! If you don't know Richard Thompson, you really should! (But don't think the above two songs typify his songwriting, which extends far beyond "fun" records; it's not for nothing that he's sometimes referred to as King of Gloom and Doom!) Investigate further here: http://www.richardthompsonforcompletists.com/ or here: http://www.rtlist.net/ or even here: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/ And I *still* think that were Ronnie Spector to cover Richard's "Wall of Death" with a Phil Spector-type backing it would be a mammoth success, even today... wudzi -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 5 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 09:55:54 -0500 From: Mikey Subject: Re: Canadian Re-issues Mark, I know of one reissue label that is looking for the Terry Black tapes to put out a comp. Please email me offlist thanks!! Mike -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 6 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 09:57:38 -0500 From: Mikey Subject: Re: Unreleased Partridge Family Mark T: > Has anyone heard anything about a possible box set of all > of the unreleased songs used on the The Partridge Family show > but never put out commercially? I've heard rumors for a long > time but nothing definitive. I'd especially like the 2 tracks > from the pilot which, IMO are the 2 best songs they did! Haven't heard of this, but I'd sure like to see things like "Stephanie" and "Having A Ball" released. Also the instrumental music that Bobby Sherman was playing the Partridges garage!! Mikey -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 7 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 13:57:26 -0000 From: Peter Lerner Subject: Re: Bee Gees & White Soul Phil Milstein wrote: > Has there ever been a song written and originally recorded by white > artists that was more accepted as authentically black than "To Love > Somebody"? The acceptance of this song among the soul elite has to > have been one of the great thrills of the Bee Gees' career. May I put in a vote for Jackie DeShannon's excellent "Put a little love in your heart"? Recorded by the Isley Brothers, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Ella Fitzgerald, David Ruffin, Dionne Warwick, Jones Girls, reggae's Marcia Griffiths, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Dorothy (Edwin Hawkins) Morrison, Carolyn Franklin to name but a few. Pretty soulful, huh? Peter -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 8 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 10:16:42 EST From: Roland Subject: Gurus Play Bonner & Gordon Just listening to the new Sundazed reissue of the Gurus and they do a cover of the Bonner /Gordon song "They All Got Carried Away" originally done bt the Parrots. The odd part is they leave the "parrot talk" in the song which makes sense when the band is called The Parrots but here it's just odd. Re: "Very Last Day"another cover was done by the Thyme as the flip side of the Neil Diamond's "Love To Love" on Bang (originally on A2) The Searching for Shakes garage comp database also lists 8 other versions. Roland -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 9 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 08:50:19 -0600 From: Shawn Baldwin" Subject: Re: Bee Gees & White Soul Phil Milstein wrote: > Has there ever been a song written and originally recorded by white > artists that was more accepted as authentically black than "To Love > Somebody"? The acceptance of this song among the soul elite has to > have been one of the great thrills of the Bee Gees' career. The Sweet Inspirations did the best version of the song I have ever heard! Shawn -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 10 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 16:57:02 -0000 From: Stuart Miller Subject: Gaudio/Gazette Paul Bryant wrote: > ....which is like nails scraped along a blackboard, sung > in a particularly unconvincing way; it also seems to > be a lame addition to the operatic pop attempts of the > time - Macarthur Park and its follow-ups being the big > daddies, then things like Eloise by Paul & Barry Ryan, > Excerpt from a Teenage Opera and many album tracks > too. And finally, the whole album is straining > mightily to be "relevant" like Bob Gaudio said to > himself - uh oh, the Seasons are beginning to sound > old hat, better get hip with this protest stuff. So he > went to see The Graduate and heard Pleasant Valley > Sunday and created an album whose main target seems to > be the hypocrisy of middle-class American parents, > which is a soft target if ever there was one. There > are some cracking songs on the album but my goodness > there's some bad ones too! And there you have it. In a nutshell Paul has perfectly encapsulated the reaction to the album, in particular from the media. People could not accept the Seasons moving on and tended to disparage their attempts at satire and evolvement because it was the Seasons and hey, there wasn't any screeching falsetto on the record. Unquestionably, if this had been released by any other "progressive" artist, it would have been hailed a masterpiece. Fair enough. Our senses were overloaded in the late 60s and 70s by plenty of artists looking to expand our horizons and demonstrating how they weren't afraid to swerve off the top 40 production line, so we certainly didn't need any input in that direction from a pop band like the Seasons, regardless of the quality of the product. Stuart Miller. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 11 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:39:45 EST From: Bob Rashkow Subject: Randazzo; Bee Gees; Presley; Beatles; more Jimmy Crescitelli, thoroughly enjoyed your reminiscing about NYC disco nights and mornings! I think "TSOP" (spring '74) was the first "disco phenom" record I recall hearing on Chicago charts - by midsummer '75, what with "The Hustle", "Dynomite!", AWB et al, this phenom had pervaded the AM charts. The Bee Gees, whom I have always loved, did "Jive Talkin'" and "Nights on Broadway" in '75, both of which scored big and which I consider to have heralded the "third phase" of their career. But Saturday Night Fever failed to impress me, as a movie or as a soundtrack. All it did was make me want to spin Barry and the Tamerlanes - or even Wadsworth Mansion! Or Bee Gees 1st or Horizontal. Chagrined to hear that Teddy Randazzo passed on. What a wonderful penner, producer, singer, arranger - how we will miss him! "Jailhouse Rock". Did Elvis even realize what he was singing? Would he himself have approved? I've always wondered about those lyrics, because surely they didn't have "co-ed jails" then, anymore than we have them now! Whoa. Let's not even go there! First Beatles tune I remember hearing (at age 8, probably) was, you guessed it, either "She Loves You" or "I Want To Hold Your Hand".....on the Ed Sullivan Show. My cousin, 05 years older than I, had the Meet the Beatles LP. But it wasn't until "Yesterday", "Day Tripper", RUBBER SOUL, REVOLVER, etc. were released that this impressionable pre-teen really began to appreciate the talents of the Fab 4. I usually preferred to listen to Ides of March, Shades of Blue, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and other groups that were really sending me to Groovy Land at the time. Bobster -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 12 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 17:57:30 -0000 From: Mike Edwards Subject: William DeVaughan Phil Milstein writes re: William DeVaughan's "Be Thankful For What You Got": > I sure don't hear Be Thankful as disco. I had the pleasure of > interviewing Wm. DeVaughan a few years back (by phone), as his > recording had a quasi-song-poem origin. An extremely nice man, and > one with a fairly unique story. He both couldn't and wasn't able to > do much touring on his hit, because through that period and even up > to the time I talked to him he had retained his day job as an > engineer for the city of Washington D.C. Very nice write-up, Phil, and an appropriate title for Thanksgiving. If you get an opportunity to talk to him again, I'd be interested in what he thought of Massive Attack's version, which was released in 1991 on their "Blue Lines" CD. He wrote the song, so hopefully he got some royalties as the album got to #13 in the UK. As with a lot of UK 90s' stuff, there was no showing in the US but I imagine it sold well in Europe. Massive Attack list some of those artists that inspired them. Billy Cobham, Martin Scorsese, Isaac Hayes, John Lennon and Herbie Hancock make the cut but William DeVaughan doesn't even though his song was the only non-original track on the album. Still, as I say to my daughter when she raves about Massive Attack, "we knew what we were doing in the 70s" Mike -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 13 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 22:07:53 +0000 From: Richard Havers Subject: Tunesmith - Jimmy Webb CD I received from Amazon UK this morning my copy of the new Raven (Australian label) double CD, Tunesmith - The Songs of Jimmy Webb. It is a treat. The track listing is below and as a quick scan reveals it contains many obvious choices but it also has some real rarities too. Amongst the standouts are the lovely Beach Boysesque harmonies of JLW's group Strawberry Children. Jackie DeShannon's take on 'The Girl's Song' is fabulous, as is Hugo Montenegro's 'When It Was Done'. Anyone who has not heard in Ian Matthews' 'Met Her On A Plane' has missed a gem; as to Kenny Rankin's 'She Moves Eyes Follow'.....for me the definitive reading. To hear Judy Collins' angelic vocal on 'Harsh Mistress' reminded me what a superb interpreter of songs she has been. A real rare track is 'Parenthesis' by Kerry Biddell, it's one of the tracks that makes this CD indispensable for Webbites. I love Richard Harris singing 'The Name of my Sorrow', so was particularly impressed by Mark Lindsay's take on a classic piece of Webb melancholia. I could go on but just let me say if you like Jimmy Webb then this is a must. While using Linda Ronstadt and 'Adios' to finish is obvious it is also sublime. For those who have not heard it there are Brian Wilson b/v's that are incomparable. Richard 1 | Love Years Coming | Strawberry Children 2 | I Keep On Keeping On | The Contessas 3 | Worst That Could Happen | Brooklyn Bridge 4 | How Sweet It Is | The Picardy Singers 5 | Up, Up And Away | The 5th Dimension 6 | The Girl's Song | Jackie Deshannon 7 | Tunesmith | Vicki Carr 8 | Requiem:820 Latham | The Executives 9 | Magic Garden | Dusty Springfield 10 | Galveston | Glen Campbell 11 | Just Another Piece Of Paper | Glen Campbell 12 | Macarthur Park | Richard Harris 13 | If Ships Were Made To Sail | Scott Walker 14 | Where Does Brown Bigin? | Scott Walker 15 | Song Seller | Paul Revere & The Raiders 16 | Clowns Exit Laughing | The Fortunes 17 | When It Was Done | Hugo Montenegro 18 | She Never Smiles Anymore | The Milk Perjanik Complex (With Terr Kaff) 19 | Do What You Gotta Do | The Four Tops 20 | Honey Come Back | Junior Walker & The All Stars 21 | By The Time I Get To Phoenix | Stevie Wonder 22 | My Christmas Tree | The Temptations 23 | Didn't We | Dionne Warkwick 24 | Mixed-Up Girl | Nancy Wilson 25 | P.F. Sloan | The Association 26 | Wichita Lineman/By The Time I Get To Phoenix | King Harvest 27 | All My Love's Laughter | Jennifer Warnes 28 | The Moon's A Harsh Mistress | Judy Collins 29 | Parenthesis | Kerry Biddell 30 | The Name Of My Sorrow | Mark Lindsay 31 | The Old Man At The Fair | Mark Lindsay 32 | Met Her On A Plane | Ian Matthews 33 | All I Know | Art Garfunkel 34 | 5.30 Plane | The Supremes 35 | Cheap Lovin' | The Supremes 36 | Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon | The Three Degrees 37 | She Moves, Eyes Follow | Kenny Rankin 38 | Oklahoma Nights | Arlo Guthrie 39 | The Highwayman | The Highwayman 40 | Himmler's Ring | Lowell George 41 | Lost Generation | Onie J. Holy 42 | The Last Unicorn | Kenny Loggins 43 | Where's The Playground Susie? | Everything But The Girl 44 | Wichita Lineman | R.E.M. 45 | You Can't Treat The Wrong Man Right | Linda Ronstadt 46 | Adios | Linda Ronstadt -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 14 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:30:32 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Jones Subject: Another gay song? In all this discussion about possible gay songs, I don't remember anyone mentioning the Kinks' "Lola." The last verse ends: "But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man / And so is Lola." So is Lola "glad I'm a man," or so is Lola "a man"? Just some food for thought. Speaking of which - for my fellow US S'poppers, Happy Thanksgiving! -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 15 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 18:31:43 +0100 From: Stephane Rebeschini Subject: Re: Bob Seger Billy G. Spradlin" a écrit: > For years Seger has mentioned in interviews that he and (I think his > now former) manager Punch Andrews were going to release a compilation > of his early singles. After 20 years and 2 Greatest Hits CDs of his > post-"Night Moves" work, there's no word if those early singles will > ever be reissued. > > I dont know who owns his early singles, but many of them were released > by Cameo. I guess those records are in the same legal limbo that > other Cameo/Parkway artists are. Allan Klein owns them, but will never > release them on CD because he doesn't want to pay royalties to the > people involved in making them. Eleven Bob Seger songs recorded before his Capitol LPs were recently reissued on CD as "The Best Of Hide-Out Records, Early Detroit Underground Garage Rock" on Hide-Out Records, with 24 tracks by Seger (11 songs by BS System, BS & Last Heard, Draft Dodger...), the Underdogs, the Mushrooms (with a young Glenn Frey), the Pleasure Seekers (with a young Suzi Quatro), 04 Of Us... Well done reissue, with liner notes and the repro of a 1966 "Hide-Out club" member. More info there : http://www.psychotronic.com/ioam/hideout_records.htm Stephane -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 16 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:25:54 -0800 (PST) From: Kevin Subject: Re: Modern Doo Wop Superoldies wrote: > What other modern doo wop records are there? Don't forget The Mighty Echoes, who have three CDs out and have guested on a number of other projects. Pop revivalists may be interested to note that 1st tenor in the Mighty Echoes is Jon Rubin of the much beloved Rubinoos. http://www.mightyechoes.com/ -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 17 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 18:52:17 -0000 From: Rob Stride Subject: Re: 4 Seasons' "Gazette" I personally thought the lyrics on The Seasons' "Gazette" pretty good; they were written by Jake Holmes who was brought in by Gaudio because of his excellent track record and social awareness. The two of them went on to write the highly acclaimed "Watertown" for Old Blue Eyes. Rob -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 18 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 09:34:55 -0800 From: Bryan Subject: Re: Shortest track of all time I don't know if anyone's mentioned it (don't think so), but Andy Partridge of XTC once contributed a :20 second track to a collection called 'Ambition, Vols. 1-2: The History of Cherry Red Records.' Now, it won't win any awards for being the *shortest* track of all time, as evidenced in this thread, but it's very entertaining. Here's what I remember about it: Partridge begins by saying, "Okay, let's begin then, shall we?" and then introduces short sound samples to represent a few decades in the "history" of rock and roll"... "The Fifties" -- funny doo-wop vocal "ooh ah" "The Sixties" -- noodling acid rock guitar solo "The Seventies" -- thundering electrified power chord "and finally, the Eighties" -- a synthesizer squeel... "Thank you and goodnight".... Bryan -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 19 Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 00:20:15 -0000 From: Rob Stride Subject: Re: Gaudio/Gazette > .......People could not accept the Seasons moving on and > tended to disparage their attempts at satire and evolvement > because it was the Seasons and hey, there wasn't any > screeching falsetto on the record. Unquestionably, if this > had been released by any other "progressive" artist, it would > have been hailed a masterpiece. I must agree with Stuart, if that album had been recorded by anyone else it would have had a totally different reception. Bob brought in Jake Holmes for the simple reason that they were like many other pop bands of the 60s, they knew how to have hits.....but unlike others, they knew their limitations. Rather than go it alone and make a total plank of himself, Bob got hold of Jake Holmes, a much respected singer\songwriter of the 60s, with an accepted social awareness that Bob did not posess, but respected. (Bob having been a hitmaker & popster since he wrote "Short Shorts" while still at school, he'd known very little hardship). This is a BRILLIANT album IMPO and should be listend to without prejudice Rob (4 Seasons fan, as if you didn't guess) -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
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