__________________________________________________________ __________ __________ __________ __________ __________ S P E C T R O P O P __________ __________ __________ __________________________________________________________ Volume #0200 December 25, 1998 __________________________________________________________ Best Holiday Wishes to all, from Spectropop AdministrationSubject: Brenda/Patrice Holloway Sent: 12/23/98 11:18 am Received: 12/23/98 11:28 am From: IAC To: Spectropop List Hi David, One of the best shows I saw this (or any) year was Brenda Holloway and Kim Weston back in April, when they came over to the UK to do a one-night only northern soul all-nighter in Manchester. The place was packed to capacity, and the crowd - who knew each and every song (even unreleased ones, I might add) - just adored them. Brenda and Kim just couldn't believe it - they did a radio interview, and actually said people back home have little respect for "old" singers (Spectropop subscribers excepted, of course!!) What made the night extra special was that the DJ behind the show had actually obtained and brought over all Brenda's and Kim's authentic Motown backing tracks from the 60s, which they sang along to. Even stuff that was unreleased - which he has managed to license and release legitimately on a Polygram subsid (Debutante) in the UK . But prior to that, he'd been playing the acetates in the clubs, which is why the crowd knew some of the songs better than even Brenda or Kim did!! Brenda came on first, and I'm not kidding you, she looked exactly like she did in the 60s - she just hasn't aged at all, neither has the voice. She sang all the well-known ones (including my personal fave "When I'm Gone"), unissued tracks like "Lonely Boy", "Reconsider". And to top it off we even got "Play It Cool, Stay In School"!!! She finished by singing one she never actually recorded - "You're Gonna Love My Baby" - to the original Barbara McNair backing track, and made it her own. Believe me, the crowd was in heaven! Regarding Patrice - yes, she recorded for Capitol, as a solo artiste and later as one of the voices behind cartoon group Josie & the Pussycats. But prior to that, she too had cut some sides for Motown, but none were issued. However, the aforementioned DJ - Chris King - found some Patrice stuff in the vaults and has put out a track "For The Love Of Mike", on one of his Debutante compilations. I believe Patrice has had some addiction problems in recent years. A friend of mine who was also involved in arranging the show actually visited Brenda in California at her home and did a lengthy interview, in which she talks about the way she was treated as an outsider by many at Motown, and she also talks about Patrice. If anyone is interested in reading it, e-mail me and I'll forward a copy as a file - just tell me which format you want. Ian Chapman --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- Subject: Darlene Love on David Letterman, Etc. Sent: 12/24/98 3:27 pm Received: 12/25/98 12:33 am From: Jimmy Cresitelli, JimmXXXXXXXXom To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com I trust you all saw her performance of "Christmas." Cissy Houston, Roberta Flack, and Phoebe Snow did backup! Has anyone heard Darlene's gospel CD yet? Opinions? I haven't yet. Carol Kaye, glad to have you aboard. I have a lot of your fun stuff on tape from over the years. You've been very informative. I remember reading some years ago Cher saying, "I was the Ronette who never got onstage." I assume she was speaking figuratively! : ) Doc Rock, thanks for all your articles. Barbara Alston, keep up the good work! Will Stos, I tried the "It's My party" web search... no luck. Got the URL? Much love and the best of the season to all!! Happy Holidays to everyone! Jimmy C. --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- Subject: Lesley Gores' Coke Commercial Sent: 12/23/98 12:34 pm Received: 12/24/98 12:50 am From: CLAUDIA CUNNINGHAM, TXXXXXXXX.net To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com Last year I heard a jingle for Coke sung by Lesley Gore. It went, "Do you want to know what we did last night? Nothin', just nothin' at all, just sat around, had a Coke or two"....It was so catchy it could have been a hit! The tune still sticks in my mind. It sounded very Brill Building. Anyone know when it was recorded and who wrote the jingle? --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- Subject: Lest you think Sent: 12/23/98 8:53 am Received: 12/24/98 9:23 am From: Carol Kaye, carolXXXXXXXXlink.net To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com Lest you think I'm some kind of "goodie-two-shoes" talking about the fact that our group of studio musicians didn't do drugs (about 350 of us in the LA studios in the 60s), am sure that a handful probably did something but at home -- When you're working 10-16 hours every day of the week, you're going like the wind, eating food out of cans before the next date, and none of our crew was into using drugs at all, having come from either the jazz nightclubs (where there was some serious drug-use by a lot of jazz musicians, and no thank-you for us) or big-band days where booze was the thing, yet booze was not allowed in studios at all either -- plus both would foul up your mind so the studio musician could not tolerate that. Later in the 70s, with the younger bunch, there was some drug use but NEVER, in the film or TV film studios, that was very disciplinary, and we liked it that way. Our business was a very important business, and there was no toleration for drugs, or boozed out people who couldn't play their instrument well. That's not to say that a handful out of the 350 weren't into say smoking a little pot at home, but you NEVER saw that in the 60s studios. However, some of the stars did get into drugs. But there again, it simply wasn't around in the 60s studios, and certainly not on any of our dates from the 70s on either. Phil Spector came to 1 of 2 of my house-parties, he walked in and saw us laughing, dancing to the music, and he instantly went to a corner, grabbed some chicken and milk and enjoyed talking with my kids (and they liked him, my oldest is a VIP at Media One and thoroughly enthralls all the executives with her tales of being around Phil Spector at his dates; she remembers very well from sitting in the booth aspect). I made that statement (studio musicians didn't do drugs) and wanted to clear that up. No we led pretty "boring lives" -- one chiropractor in Denver a few years ago, as soon as he knew I was a "studio musician," yelled "party girl" when I walked in. Boy did I give him hell - " party girl" my foot!! We're more straight than most of the public out there. We worked our tails off, and yes, while we were mainly jazz and/or big-band musicians (not rock and rollers), we did enjoy playing some of that rock and roll -- it was a new world back then. Most of us are back playing jazz, and having a good time. The few real rockers in the 60s doing the studio work, went on to become "stars " themselves -- partly due to the fact that increasingly, the music was becoming well-arranged and they couldn't read that well in the mid-60s -- not to take away from their talents, they were wonderful talents, but you saw them get out of the studio work and on to the "stardom" trail -- something that most of studio musicians had NO eyes for. Thanks. Best, Carol Kaye http://www.carolkaye.com/ --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- Subject: Coke jingles Sent: 12/23/98 10:36 am Received: 12/23/98 11:28 am From: IAC, ianXXXXXXXXlnet.co.uk To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com Very nice find, Matthew. There were loads of Coke jingles done, and sometimes different takes of the same jingle cropped up on different formats - (many came out as 7" EPs too). About two or three years or so back, a South American company put over 60 Coke jingles from the 60s onto a CD, including Sue Thompson, and the others you mention. I think it's still available. You can't miss the cover, it has the Coca Cola logo all over it, and the tracks aren't dubbed either. What's interesting is that some of the tracks, such as a couple by the Supremes - are "new" songs, that is, not based on any of their current hits. There was also a great 7" vinyl boot some year back with various artists plugging "Great Shakes" milkshake drink - as with the Coke jingles, the ads were arranged vaguely similar to current hits, so you get Dusty Springfield with a slant on "I Only Want To Be With You", the Chiffons on "Sweet Talking Guy", also the Tokens, Happenings, Yardbirds and the Who and others. "So thick it stands up to a straw............" Ian Chapman --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- Subject: Lovin' Feelin' Sent: 12/23/98 2:17 pm Received: 12/24/98 12:50 am From: Carol Kaye, carolXXXXXXXXlink.net To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com Didn't mean to rag on in that last post. Anyway... Claudia asked about "Lovin' Feelin'", I played guitar on that, with Phil's doubling echo on the acoustic Epiphone Emperor I played on (picture is on my website -- my former jazz box). Ray Pohlman on elec. bass and Earl Palmer on drums, with the Righteous Bros. singing right there in the main room - tho' they did move to the vocal booth, however, am sure they overdubbed the final vocals later, it was a tracking date. Phil put so much echo in our phones it was hard to play in good time together at first (slow tempos are the hardest to groove in). So after adjustments in the earphones (you have to remember, Phil started that earphone usage and it was pretty new then, plus he put the echo big and loud in the phones too - ugh!), we started playing and I dug in and played extra hard rhythm on my jazz box to help the rhythm. section gel together and we finally did. You hear me doubling the bass notes part in the slow montuno section (middle part). Phil used the echo to double up my 8th-note rhythms, making them 16ths, which blended well with the drums. Earl and I lock in so well together anyway, he was probably my favorite drummer of all time to play with on elec. bass, Hal was fine too, John Guerin, Paul Humphrey was my favorite later on, recorded a lot with Shelly Manne, etc. but Earl was my all-time favorite I'd have to say. Earl brought the "swamp beat" from New Orleans and started that double-time funky stuff in LA, which was called "boogaloo" then (now just called funk, the 8/8 stuff) -- drummer Sharkey Hall (who had the drum work sewn up before Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer) recognized it for what it was at first when Earl first brought that to town, and rightly said "it's samba music", and we all adapted (it got boring on some dates, so we'd double up w/Earl on his swamp beat, and yes, it was "samba" but no-one called it that -- there was so much prejudice "against" jazz musicians by the younger and younger up and coming A & R men in rock (now called producers, A & R stood for Artists and Repertoire back then). So it was the "new" funky beat that we all contributed too which Earl started. Hal Blaine started the surf-rock commercial beats (Earl did some of that too tho'). Earl and I always wound up paradiddling together on the fade and looking at each other laughing, when I'd play 16ths with him (on bass), it was so much fun to groove together. Anyway, with "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", there were tons of people in the booth to watch the date at Gold Star Recorders (which btw burned down shortly after sold early 80s, is now a mini-mall parking lot), lots of studio musicians in the big studio too. We instantly knew it would be a big hit for Phil, the tune was actually very good, the Righteous Bros. wonderful singers (good guys too), and Phil had the usual fine crew of studio musicians. To tell you the truth, I don't remember Cher being there on that date, my bad memory. We all saw that romance blossom before our eyes there at Gold Star - I'm playing on practically every Sonny & Cher dates, first elec. 12-string fills, that was part of their sound, then elec. bass later on - Sonny was good to work for and Cher loved sitting in with the Percussion Section -- they really never had fights, but an occasional disagreement, but really it was pretty good between them. Think Cher was maybe there in the booth then, and of course, once you cut a track, you never know what was put on later. The musicians were cutting about 12-14 tunes every day, hard to keep track of every one. I've recorded around 10,000 sessions, that comes out to about 40,000 songs, so of course you remember bits and pieces of some. There's a couple of interview films in the can some of our group of studio musicians have cut already which will be shown on TV next year. They're still in the process of being added to, edited, etc., both very big projects -- think you'll be interested in those as well as the studio musician Union Contract credit book almost finished by Russ Wapensky ( Greenwood Press) which will probably go to print about Feb. at the latest, don't know how soon out, but soon. Russ meticulously researched, interviewed, and data-based on computer the Contract credits of studio musicians 1949-1969, top 20 hits, with particular attention paid to Phil Spector dates, Beach Boy dates, etc. We're not talking about the phony singer's overdub dates when the vocals were put on which is mostly used as "official" record date dates, but the actual date the TRACKS were laid down by the studio musicians who NEVER got their names on the backs of the albums they all played on in the 60s (unless it was per gratis). It took until 1973 when the Musician's Union insisted that session musician's names be printed on the backs of the record albums, hence, we're not credited for the 1,000s of record dates we recorded in the 60s, but Russ's book will start to set the record straight -- the credits didn't really matter to us at that time -- Little did we know that the public would get a phony view of who really recorded their favorite hits. Groups like the Monkees kept insisting "they" played on their own records all along and the Beach Boys didn't mind if the public thought they cut their own records, ditto the rest of the groups. This caused a total phony impression with the public, something being corrected a little at a time right now, but it's usually a shock that their "favorite group" never cut their own recordings, inc. the surf-rock groups -- we'd cut the tracks and if they hit, then the record company would put a nice-looking bunch of young musicians together to "be" that group -- very typical. There were groups like the Markets which were formed from our crew of studio musicians totally. I'm the bassist on "Batman" theme hit of the Markets which they got us out of bed at 4AM in the morning to cut that hit-making copy of the TV theme. The music always came first, then the star-making of the group and/or singer, such was the nature of our business. We, the 50-60-70 of the "busiest" of the 350 studio musicians, were called the "clique", the "hit makers" if you will -- none of us ever heard of Hal Blaine's pet name "wrecking crew" until he put out his book about 1990. That actually was the name of the group in back of Darlene Love in NYC in the 80s, that's probably where he got it from, we never went by that name at all, but I don't begrudge Hal for wanting to promote his book. Earl's book "Heartbeat" will be out in March (Smithsonian publishers), others coming out, mine is about 1/3 done, etc.. Russ Wapensky, would run into a few snags in his research and would discover people's names which may have been left off one contract (and then added onto another contract), sometimes the record companies ran late in paying us (check went to our Union where we paid work-dues and picked them up) and to avoid the late-fee penalty, would simply change the record date on the contracts, etc., but these glaring errors were few, the bulk of it all was correct. Except for the Motown scam, about 40% of 60s Motown hits were cut in LA. That's such a sham and we did undercover dates for them for far too long, they've been out here, had offices out here since 1962. And of course the Detroit crew will never relinquish their royalties on our dates which they claim -- it's a shame, but we let them go along time with cash dates. This book will dispel forever the myths about the groups hit recordings, and will prove who really did play on them. The studio musicians cut everyone's hits in the 60s, from the Monkees to the Animals, even the Ventures (although' some of the Ventures played on their recordings but that's myself on bass and Hal Blaine on drums, etc.), and one other, Frank Zappa had his own bass player and drummer but the rest were studio musicians: Tommy Tedesco on lead guitar on Zappa's recordings, Dennis Budimer and myself on 12-strings, and we loved his parts, there were challenging and good music. But after seeing the lyrics of the 2nd album, I opted out (just played on part of the 2nd, but all of the 1st album) as I was raising my 3 children and was sort of shocked at the lyrics, Frank was gracious, very nice and we remained friends, he understood. Yes, you might say I was a prude, but most of our bunch were (then). Anyway, I sort of remember Tommy T. there too on Lovin' Feelin', not sure, but it will be all in Russ's book of credits. I know that on guitars, not all at once, but at least 4 guitars at a time, Phil always used Howard Roberts, Glen Campbell, Barney Kessel, and others like David Cohen, Bill Pitman, Bud Coleman, Billy Strange, Al Casey, Don Peake, and some others occasionally like James Burton, who really didn't do a lot of studio work except for a short brief "hot" time before he went on the road w/Elvis. On that "Lovin'" date had to be Don Randi, and probably another 2 keyboardists, he always liked to use Larry Knechtel, Mike Rubini, Mac Rebennac (usually on organ, now Dr. John), Leon Russell, Al DeLory (although' Al left pretty early to go produce, he never liked session work on piano, but is a fine pianist), Gene Page who I understand did the arrangement, I don't quite remember as I did a ton of dates for Gene), Larry Muhoberac (who now lives in Australia, a fine pianist), that's about it, usually 2-3 pianists at the same time, one would be on organ, or some other keyboard, but Phil liked 2 pianos at the same time too. Percussion usually included: Julius Wechter (his band was the Baja Marimba band), Gene Estes, Alan Estes, Emil Richards, Gary Coleman, Frankie Capp (who is the drummer on "The Beat Goes On"), Victor Feldman, Curry Cjader (Cal's brother). About 3-4 percussionsits usually. And the horn men included on Phil's dates were: Lew McCreary (who is now in the hospital w/kidney cancer, we're all pulling for him, just saw him yesterday, got good spirit, the finest in studios on trombone and a helluva fine jazz trombonist too -- we played together w/Page Cavenaugh's band, others, like Quincy Jones, etc.), Dave Wells trombone, Gail Martin bass trombone (maybe), Lou Blackburn trombone, Ollie Mitchell lead trumpet (he did a lot of Herb Alpert's overdubs), Ray Caton trumpet, even our Union pres. did some of Phil's dates, Bill Peterson trumpet, Freddy Hill trumpet (now lives in Africa), Tony Terran did some on trumpet, and the fellow in the back of the band on SNL in NY, Billy something did some too. Steve Douglas the #1 rock sax soloist in LA (and probably all the rock type hits period) was always "the" sax player, nice guy, also gone now (Ray Pohlman too, both wonderful people, Tommy Tedesco gone, Gene Estes, Bud Coleman gone). There was quite a group of people that Phil liked to use, drummers were either Hal Blaine or Earl Palmer. He used Gayle Levant on harp (daughter of Oscar Levant, later married and divorced from Artie Butler, Gayle now owns Evergreen Studios (named something else too) where the Simpsons score is always cut with a 35-piece orchestra, Alf Clausen composer/arranger (Alf was one of my early-on bass students circa 1970, along with Dave Hungate, John Clayton, others). Well, this is probably more than you wanted to know, got carried away here. But that's about all I remember about the "Lovin' Feelin'" date. We didn't have to do much creatively with that one, the tune was so good and the initial arrangement pretty good (but most recordings of the early 60s, we had to come up with head arrangements -- that is, improvised arrangements, our own licks on skeleton arrangements or bare chord charts). Merry Christmas! Carol Kaye http://www.carolkaye.com/ --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- Subject: It's My Party Sent: 12/23/98 12:02 pm Received: 12/23/98 12:10 pm From: Doc Rock, docrXXXXXXXXcom To: Spectropop List, spectrXXXXXXXXties.com William wrote: "It's My Party, and the three or four members are all in their teens. They've recorded two singles including " Can't b/w I'd Much Rather Be With The Girls," and "That Boy John b/w The Boy Next Door." William, I will pass this news on to the Secrets!! Doc --------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------- End
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