History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
Folks in the Puget Sound and the Sacramento areas will remember this song as the sign off song of KCPQ-TV 13 Tacoma and KCRA-TV 3 Sacramento before the stations went 24 hours (and filled their overnight schedules with crappy, boring infomercials instead of those awesome old, black and white and made-for-tv movies Kelly Televison used to specialize in for KCPQ in the '80s before KCPQ affiliated with Fox.)
(Why am I suddenly craving Spaghetti-O's")
Jan Peerce was an awesome opera singer, ranking right up there with Mario Lanza, Luciano Pavarotti and Enrico Caruso. A really powerful voice - with style to spare. It was MADE for the theater.
And this song is PURE CLASS.
The version on the YouTube video seems to be the mono version. I'm thinking about buying a copy of the Living Stereo version. With the way RCA Victor mastered (and I do mean MASTERED) their old Living Stereo vinyl albums from the late '50s, I'll bet it sounds FANTASTIC!.......
Here's a nifty little compilation of some of Bob Marley & The
Wailer's earliest recordings (with Peter Tosh.) Released in 1977 as Bob
Marley was making his mark on American FM rock stations and people
everywhere were discovering this strange new music called "reggae".
Whereas back then, punk was loud, fast and snotty, reggae was the
mellow, laid back stuff your stoner next door neighbour played loudly on his stereo every
Sunday morning.
While on the surface, this might look like your
typical major label budget compilation (Calla was the hard
funk/Caribbean music imprint of CBS Records) to cash in on a big trend
by reissuing a current superstar's early material, this album is
surprisingly well mastered with some instantly catchy tunes ("Wings Of A
Dove", "I'm Still Waiting") and excellent liner notes on the back
cover.
On this one, you hear more of a '60s soul influence (these
sessions were recorded in the late '60s, before Marley's more
rock-influenced Island albums in the '70s that made him a superstar) and
Bob Marley could have easily scored a few '60s US hits if CBS were
actively looking in Jamaica for exciting new music. Which they weren't
(NOBODY outside of Island and a few specialty labels were doing that.)
These recordings are reissued material Bob Marley & The Wailers
recorded for New World Disc Records. It's a necessary companion to Bob
Marley's greatest hits album Legend.
And the perfect soundtrack for a Sunday morning.....
Well, let me put it this way. Billy Squier was cool. SUPER COOL. At one time, he REALLY was the most popular solo rock artist in the early '80s in America, At one time eclipsing Bryan Adams, George Thorogood and Pat Benatar COMBINED. And if you don't believe it, I'll remind you:
But in 1984, something went wrong......Horribly wrong
He was at the peak of his career when he released Signs Of Life, and from all indicators, it was going to be ANOTHER blockbuster album. And it was. This baby shipped platinum straight from Capitol Records on pre-orders ALONE. And a catchy new song hit the airwaves, "Rock Me Tonite" and all was going according to plan.
And then MTV aired the World Premiere Video of "Rock Me Tonite".......
....and you could hear the sound of a million jaws collectively hitting the floor.
For one thing, EVERYTHING was wrong with the video. Famous heterosexual rock guitarists just weren't supposed to prance around in ripped tank tops and pajama bottoms. Or dry hump the floor. Or wear ANYTHING pink. Or stumble around with the band like a drunken drag queen (with a PINK guitar.) It was a TOTAL image clash from the Billy Squier of just a year ago then. Fans scratched their heads and said "What the fu.....?"
And it was proof positive a HUGELY successful music career can be destroyed almost overnight by just ONE bad music video.
And Billy Squier, who once HEADLINED stadiums was suddenly reduced to playing much smaller music venues. (His loyalest fans were still plentiful, but the mainstream fans had all but instantly deserted him.) Over ONE video......
The next few years were rough as he tried to live down the "Rock Me Tonite" video. He released an album in 1986 Enough Is Enough which was a far more serious effort in an attempt to recover from the video debacle and return to form. But rock radio and MTV had mostly ignored it. They were too focused on the hair metal bands who, ironically, pranced around in ripped tank tops and pajama bottoms. Dry humped the floors. Wore ANYTHING pink. And stumbled around like a drunken drag queens.
Some even had PINK guitars.
His comeback finally came in 1989 with the release of Hear And Now, which scored him his first #1 rock hit since "Rock Me Tonite" called "Don't Say You Love Me"and things looked good again....
But Seattle grunge came and soon wiped everyone off the map.
He left Capitol in the early '90s and the music business for the most part, doing nature conservancy work but he still makes occasional appearances at Classic Rock shows.......
