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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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!
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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
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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/
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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
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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
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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)
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