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Jamie LePage (1953-2002)
http://www.spectropop.com/Jamie.htm
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There are 17 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Can you ID the people in this 1967 Romeo/Farrell album poster?
From: Emiily
2. Re: What might be Rock and Roll
From: bnbnk
3. Re: Desperately Seeking Superman
From: Robbie McCabe
4. Re: What Is Rock & Roll?
From: Shawn Baldwin
5. Re: What Is Rock & Roll
From: Mike Rashkow
6. Re: Faux Shangri-Las
From: Laura Pinto
7. Re: What Is Rock & Roll?
From: Mike Rashkow masterswng@aol.com
8. Re: Telephone Songs
From: George Leonard
9. Van Trevor; Kingsmen's "Wolf of Manhattan"; Al Anderson interview
From: Country Paul
10. Re: Mark Wirtz
From: Paul Richards
11. Telephone Songs
From: Mike Rashkow
12. Re: What Is Rock & Roll
From: Tom Taber
13. RE: Faux Shangri-las
From: Delia Barnard
14. Soulwalking
From: Mike Rashkow
15. Fwd: Singer-Songwriter Hank Ballard Dies
From: Neb Rodgers
16. Re: Mark Wirtz
From: Patrick Rands
17. weekend stuff
From: Keith Beach
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 01:45:29 -0000
From: Emiily
Subject: Can you ID the people in this 1967 Romeo/Farrell album poster?
I can't ID the people in this eBay item - can you?:
http://cgi.aol.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29940&item=2512575537&rd=1
It was for a 1967 record by Tony Romeo and Wes Farrell called
"The World of Good and Plenty." To my understanding, Douglas
Good and Ginny Plenty were fictitious characters. Tony Romeo
was Douglas Good, but I don't know who Ginny Plenty was. Do you?
Also, someone who knew Tony Romeo says that the people on the
poster resemble neither Romeo nor Farrell. So, who were they?
Any help is appreciated. I'm trying to gain information for my
new Tony Romeo tribute site, http://www.tonyromeo.net
Sorry I don't know how to scan the picture of the poster into
this message.
Thanks a bunch for your help.
Emily
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:25:45 -0000
From: bnbnk
Subject: Re: What might be Rock and Roll
20 songs which entertain me, and why, are listed in the files area,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spectropop/files/miscellaneous
Seminal songs? Well, I don't know about that. Do all of these
songs fall under the category of "Rock and Roll"? Eh, it doesn't
really matter. Music is music no matter what it's called.
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 17:07:16 EST
From: Robbie McCabe
Subject: Re: Desperately Seeking Superman
Rex Strother wrote:
> I am doing a bit of research on songs that are dedicated to
> or inspired by Superman - the TV show, the comic book and
> cartoon character, the films.
Rex,
"Superman's Ghost" composed/sung by Don McLean
"Superman's Song" (charted in Canada) Crash Test Dummies
These may be out of the wrong era though.
How about Gary Zekely's "I Am Superman"
(covered rather famously by REM)?
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Message: 4
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 19:36:11 -0600
From: Shawn Baldwin
Subject: Re: What Is Rock & Roll?
Big Momma Thornton should be the the #1 influence in Rock and
Roll her song is first Rock and Roll song. Little Richard should
be #2 and the King of Rock and Roll.
Shawn
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 21:36:21 EST
From: Mike Rashkow
Subject: Re: What Is Rock & Roll
Ken Silverwood:
> Elvis Presley--------------Hound Dog
> Jerry Lee Lewis------------High School Confidential
> Little Richard-------------Long Tall Sally
> Hank Williams--------------Lovesick Blues
> Buddy Holly & Crickets-----Oh Boy (not Pop to my ears)
> Jimmie Rodgers-------------Honeycomb
> Les Paul& Mary Ford--------How High The Moon
> Frankie Laine--------------Jezebel
> Lonnie Donegan-------------Rock Island Line
> Lloyd Price----------------Lawdy Miss Clawdy
> Chuck Berry----------------Roll Over Beethoven
> Duane Eddy-----------------Rebel Rouser
> Johnny Ray-----------------Cry
> Etta James-----------------Roll With Me Henry
> Dion & Belmonts------------I Wonder Why
> Ruth Brown-----------------Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean
> Sam Cooke------------------Touch The Hem Of His Garment
> Ray Charles----------------What'd I Say
> Link Wray------------------Rumble
> Clyde McPhatter------------Without Love
GREAT LIST!! Love the Ruth Brown inclusion--what a big hit
that was.
"What'd I Say" is one I shouldn't have missed. Johnny Ray,
Hank Williams, Les & Mary and Frankie laine are all intriguing
and interesting choices. Lawdy Miss Clawdy definitely (Oh that
Specialty label-- what a wondrous thing it was).
Only one I'd have to disagree on is Presley's Hound Dog. In my
most humble opinion, if it's gonna be Hound Dog then it's got
to be Willie Mae Thornton--which reminds me, no one yet has
mentioned Johnny Otis who produced that and played guitar and
was certainly seminal.
I'm getting a blast out of these lists. Keep them coming. I'll
do the tallying.
Rashkovsky
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Message: 6
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 02:37:18 -0000
From: Laura Pinto
Subject: Re: Faux Shangri-Las
Charles G. Hill wrote:
> The Detergents took on a second Shangs tune, which I would
> love to find:
> "I Can Never Eat Home Anymore" (And that's called hungry!)
I found this one a year ago on eBay. I'd never heard of it.
And I STILL have never heard the original by the Shangri-Las!
Laura
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Message: 7
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 21:38:15 EST
From: Mike Rashkow masterswng@aol.com
Subject: Re: What Is Rock & Roll?
Bob Rashkow:
> Top 10 Rock & Roll influences
> 1. Chuck Berry
> 2. Sam Cooke
> 3. Little Richard
> 4. Elvis Presley
> 5. Jerry Lee Lewis
> 6. Fats Domino
> 7. Willie Dixon
> 8. Dinah Washington (gotta get a woman in there!)
> 9. (arguably) The Beatles
>
Those Rashkow people have great ears and great ideas.
Beautiful list Bobster.
Rashkovsky
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Message: 8
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 03 22:23:07 -0800
From: George Leonard
Subject: Re: Telephone Songs
Richard Williams
>Telephone songs? "He'll Have To Go" (in the Solomon Burke version,
>preferably): "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone/Let's
>pretend we're together, all alone/I'll tell the man to turn the
>jukebox way down low/And you can tell your friend there with you/
>He'll have to go..."
Telephone Songs? I'd like to see a thread on "Intelligent Songs"
like that one! Or, Songs for an Evening with Wittgenstein? (He was
fond of pop culture, by the way, and tried to learn slang.)
He'll Have To Go and This is Dedicated to the One I Love are
two songs that repay any logical positivist's close reading.
Jim Reeves' version is better than Solomon Burke's because the
diction is country white, not black.
Irony drenches every line. It begins by tricking you into thinking
you're listening to some standard romantic drivel ("sweet lips")
then it drops you into a vicious world of sexual betrayal most of
us, thank god, only know through watching Cops or Jerry Springer.
Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald work deceptively that way, but
they take longer to give you the sudden chill of understanding.
It's all oblique, just clues. We can call the narrator the
"traveler" since he will ask "the man" to turn the jukebox down--
he doesn't know the man's name, he's no regular. I think the
jukebox reference coupled with "the man" means we can assume the
traveler is in some kind of honky tonk, not just a truck stop.
By the time we reach the end of the first verse we know the "sweet
lips" has to have been said with irony, for he knows she's betraying
him. It's an epic of self control, because the poor devil still
wants her, even though he knows what she's doing.
And there's a reason for her to put her lips close to the phone--
a double deception. The person she's with must be extremely close
to her indeed. By the time he says, "Is he holding you the way I do?"
I think it's fair to picture her having picked up the phone while the
"friend" was not only in bed with her, but "holding her" the way the
traveler does. Grown up people of this class are not going to be
making out like kids, after all.
"You can't say the words I want to hear/ While you're with another man
/Do you love me? Answer yes or no/ Darling, I will understand....
The double betrayal: The traveler will ask her to talk to him in simple
"yes" or "no" -- don't say "I love you"-- so that her lover there
doesn't understand. She is not only with a man, she is in bed with him,
and the speaker asks if he is screwing her, even as they speak. "Is he
holding you the way I do?" I think that's what we're meant to picture--
he certainly has pictured it as a possibility. Yet he is trying to reel
her back in. It's completely amoral. Nobody's shocked. This happens.
The first stanza cycles back again, the music trails off, they vanish
from our lives forever, the traveler on the phone in the honky tonk,
the woman in bed with the phone next to her ear, the betraying lover
being betrayed by her answers. But who can forget this chilling glimpse
into their hellish little world?
George
Conception and choreography,
Sha Na Na
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Message: 9
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 02:26:04 -0500
From: Country Paul
Subject: Van Trevor; Kingsmen's "Wolf of Manhattan"; Al Anderson interview
Billy Spradlin:
> I have a 45 on Atlantic by Van Trevor "Tuesday Girl/I Want
> To Cry" that's produced by Crewe, arrangements by Sid Bass,
> both sides written by "Boulanger" I wonder if its the same guy?
Not the same guy, Billy; Dan Boulanger was Van Trevor's real name.
Trevor was from Vernon, CT (the third Hartford-area legend, behind
Gene Pitney ("The Rockville Rocket") and Al Anderson of the Wildweeds
and NRBQ ("The Duke of Windsor"). "I Want to Cry" (Atlantic 2175,
released in December, 1962) was almost a hit, at least in Hartford
and Providence. He had an excellent follow-up on Canadian-American
with "The Girl From The Main Street Diner" (worth finding - quite
the little stomper) and another small pop hit, "A Fling of the Past".
Another song got some notice as well: According to a post on WCBS-FM
DJ Bob Shannnon's website, www.bobshannon.com, in December, 1964 he released "Satisfaction Guaranteed"; initially Corsican 138, it was
re-issued on Canadian-American Records as "Satisfaction Is Guaranteed".
His back-up band was often The Saturday Knights, who also recorded on
Swan ("Ticonderoga" got some sales) and Nocturne and also backed
Freddy Cannon. (Their "Sea Mist" on Nocturne is the perfect end-of-
the-prom instrumental, and was also a small hit in the early 60's.)
Subsequently Van left rock in favor of his other love, country music,
and had a decent-sized hit on Band Box in '66 or '67 with "Our Side"
in which he acknowledges the change ("Come on over to our side...for
a good old country song"). Guess he had a following he thought would
follow him! (I've still got a customized jingle he did based on the
song from when I was doing country radio at the time.) He had a few
more singles on Date ("You've Been So Good To Me" and "Funny Familiar
Forgotten Feelings" stand out) and Royal American, with at least one
album on the latter label.
Matt wrote:
> the Kingsmen come up fairly frequently here....Lynn Easton...runs the
> company that prints all of my office's printed materials....If anyone
> has any questions, he is a very nice guy who would probably be happy
> to answer them.
I'd love to know the story behind "The Wolf of Manhattan" - how they
came to record a track unlike most of what they sounded like on record,
and why it was a "C" side - a second-pressing "B" side! That's a song
that's too good to be lost.
Finally for now, I tripped across a very informative interview from
1975 with Al Anderson done by my old friend Paul Bezanker:
http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/Opry/2904/Alinterview.htm
Recommended reading for a first-person history of Al, the Wildweeds
and a certain period of NRBQ. If you were into the "No Good To Cry"
discussion a while back, this is recommended reading.
Back from a week with the flu and catching up. More soon!
Country Paul
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Message: 10
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 02:55:57 EST
From: Paul Richards
Subject: Re: Mark Wirtz
Thanks Dan, some interesting reviews. I agree with the reviewer,
'Pop Works'is a great CD, my personal fave is Philwit & Pegasus'
crazy bubblegum 'Elephant Song', great silly lyrics: "Elephant sits
in a rhubarb tree-eee-eeee, he makin' love to a chimpanzee-eee-eeee.
Purple trunk with yellow eyes,he don't stop to realise, chimpanzee
is not the same as heeeee". How cool is that!
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Message: 11
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 21:49:56 EST
From: Mike Rashkow
Subject: Telephone Songs
Once upon a time, a long long time ago (which also happens to
be the first line in the Jerry Ragovoy/Howard Tate great record
"Ain't Nobody Home")--but I digress as usual--there was a minor
(very minor) hit--at least in Miami - named "Calling Moody Field".
Kind of a talking blues thing where the guy was ostensibly on the
phone trying to get the operator to connect him to someone at
Moody Air Force Base.
Anyone?
Rashkovksy
PS--Check out the Artie Butler/Eric Gale masterpiece section in
the bridge on "Ain't Nobody Home".
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Message: 12
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 05:57:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Tom Taber
Subject: Re: What Is Rock & Roll
Richard Havers wrote:
> Interestingly the use of the word rock (and roll) in popular
> recording goes back, at least, to the 1929 when Tampa Red's
> Hokum Jug Band cut "My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)".
While researching my soon-to-be-published book of a
woman's Civil War letters, I found in a local
newspaper info on a Minstrel show that was to appear
here (Albion, NY) in the early 1880s. One of the songs
to be performed had rock and roll in the title. I
didn't copy it at the time, and would have misplaced
it by now if I had!
Tom Taber
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Message: 13
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 10:01:17 -0000
From: Delia Barnard
Subject: RE: Faux Shangri-las
John Frank:
> I'm particularly interested in original songs ('60s vintage
> only, please), but am also accumulating a listing of covers,
> parodies and answer songs.... Help, please?
One of my favourites...
Caroline Sullivan - "Dead"
Delia
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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 09:26:18 EST
From: Mike Rashkow
Subject: Soulwalking
Here's a note I got from the guy who runs the "Soulwalking" site
I recommended the other day.....
http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/The%20Artists.html
"Michael, Thanks for the e-mail.
Interesting story regarding Clarence Paul. His daughter, Alexis,
got in touch and sent me an interview she did with her Dad as a
child. Real Audio at the site.
Most of the information at Soulwalking comes from books, however,
it is embellished by a great deal of information from soul fans
from all over the world.
Spectropop sounds an interesting group. If any group members want
to send any information (or correct anything at the site, as I do
make mistakes from time to time!) that would be great...."
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Message: 15
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 08:43:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Neb Rodgers
Subject: Fwd: Singer-Songwriter Hank Ballard Dies
Singer-Songwriter Hank Ballard Dies
LOS ANGELES - Hank Ballard, the singer and songwriter whose hit "The
Twist" ushered a nationwide dance craze in the 1960s, has died.
Ballard, who was suffering from throat cancer, died Sunday at his home,
friends said. Friend and caretaker Anna Ayala said Ballard's birth records
indicate he was born in 1927, but biographical information lists his
birthdate as 1936.
"He was just a very good man and loved by so many people," Ayala said.
read on here-
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030303/ap_en_mu/obit_ballard
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Message: 16
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 17:46:03 -0000
From: Patrick Rands
Subject: Re: Mark Wirtz
Dan Hughes wrote:
> May have been mentioned here before (likely), but while checking
> out something else I came upon a nice review of Mark's CD:
> http://www.shindig-magazine.com/reviews-oct2002-1.html
> About the 4th review from the bottom of the page.
Lest we forget - there's a Volume II Pop Works available which is
one of my fave cds of 2003 so far. Bubblegum delights from Mark
and amazingly compiled by the other Mark - wonderful:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/popworks/pw2.htm
:Patrick
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Message: 17
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 18:27:37 -0000
From: Keith Beach
Subject: weekend stuff
A couple of interesting radio/tv moments from this last weekend
I'd like to report in.
The excellent TV documentary series, Lost Highway: The Story Of
Country Music, playing on BBC2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/folkcountry/losthighway/
reached the late 50s on Saturday. Of most interest to this group
was the story and clips of Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry". The whole
series has been fascinating even if Country is not your thing.
That old radio warhorse, Desert Island Discs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs.shtml, had
Gene Pitney as guest. It's repeated this Friday and then I think
it's accesible on archives. Interesting stories about Phil Spector
(his favourite track of his long career is "Every breath I take").
Keith Beach
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