Spectropop - Digest Number 1223

• From: Spectropop Group
• Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004

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               SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop!
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There are 3 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

      1. Re: The Buchanan Bros
           From: Mike Rashkow 
      2. Re: Melodies Rule
           From: Rodney Rawlings 
      3. Tracey Dey
           From: Phil Hall 


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Message: 1
   Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 09:08:04 EST
   From: Mike Rashkow 
Subject: Re: The Buchanan Bros

Austin:
> Cashman and mess 

Austin, is this a Freudian typo?  You told me you were friends 
with Tommy.

Di la,

Rashkovsky



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Message: 2
   Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 19:23:45 -0000
   From: Rodney Rawlings 
Subject: Re: Melodies Rule

I agree with Steve and Austin on the preeminence of melody in 
judging the worth and appeal of a song. (That's part of why my 
site is called "Music, Melody, and Songs".) And I also happen 
to think that worth and appeal are intimately related. 

Those who dispute the dominance of melody often say words and music 
are equally important, and in a sense this is true. Bad lyrics can 
kill the appeal and worth of a good tune (but perhaps not of a great 
tune). But all their reasonings seem based on the premise that the 
relation between the two elements is symmetrical. This is false.

To see this, consider what happens when you write the words first and 
then a good tune that exactly fits them without a single alteration 
to the lyric. Then see how much more readily one can put good lyrics 
to a preeexisting melody without changing a note. 

Also, take a great song and try to write out the lyric as lines and 
stanzas. You'll see that music wrestles words into a format quite 
different from that endemic to verse. In Rodgers' THOU SWELL (lyrics 
by Hart), we have:

Give me just a plot of,
Not a lot of Land--
And
Thou swell, thou witty, thou grand.

Would someone who wrote words to be later set to music think of that? 

Let's say he was the kind of poet who wrote short lines such as the 
above. How likely would the composer have come up with Rodgers' 
melody to THOU SWELL? 

It's true that (apparently) Rodgers put music to words prewritten by 
Hammerstein and came up with great tunes. I'm not saying the words 
cannot come first. Just that the relation between the two is not 
symmetrical.



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Message: 3
   Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 16:22:46 -0000
   From: Phil Hall 
Subject: Tracey Dey

I've always wondered what became of the some of the lesser-
known but still noteworthy girl groups and female performers 
of the sixties. For example, I heard on good authority that 
Andrea Carroll married a movie producer and has been happily 
living on the West Coast for decades now; obviously retired 
from the music business. The Lovelites, featured on Spectropop, 
are another.  
I love Chuck Mallory's site ( http://www.girl-groups.com ), 
but while it's a mile wide, in many places it's understandably 
only an inch deep.  I'd love to fill in the cracks, and you 
just can't get most of the info from The Allmusic Guide ( 
http://www.allmusic.com ).

Tracey Dey is one of many others I've always wondered about.  
What happened to her?  Does anyone have any specific information 
about her?  How about Jean Thomas?  There's lots of others I 
wonder about, too, but no point in getting carried away with the 
subject in one post.  Is there a subgroup within Spectropop that 
specializes in the 60s girl groups?

Thanks,

Phil Hall



-------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------



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