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...
This 1989 cover of The Easybeats' 1966 classic should have been released in America. Seriously.
Elliot Goblet is a persona of Australian comedian Jack Levi. And why Apple and/or Amazon never used Elliot Goblet's voice instead of Siri and Alexa should be worthy of a federal investigation.
Black Rose was a rock group Cher sang lead vocals for. Most people and many of Cher's own fans aren't even aware of this album because it's never listed amongst most Cher discographies. And for collectors, it's a holy grail to find the original 1980 Casablanca vinyl release with record, jacket and sleeve in pristine condition. Only 400,000 copies were sold worldwide.
In 1980, Cher was romantically involved with rock guitarist Les Dudek and this led to the musical collaboration that became Black Rose. Cher had just released two disco records for Casablanca in 1979, Take Me Home and Prisoner. But Black Rose was different. It wasn't disco, it
was actually something closer to a mainstream rock album for that time.
On the album, Cher sang vocals, but only appeared in a group photo on the back of the LP.
She was not even mentioned on the cover. Cher and Dudek were conscientiously trying to avoid the spotlight on Cher and make Black Rose a group effort rather than just another solo Cher album.
In spite of Cher's incredible network of connections in Hollywood that could have INSTANTLY made them nationally famous stars, Black Rose took the high road, playing gigs at smaller LA nightclubs. Everything the hard way.
Well, almost everything. They got an A-list team of songwriters, such as David Foster, Valarie Carter, Bernie Taupin, Mike Chapman, Carole Bayer-Sager, Vinnie Poncia and Allee Willis. As well as a deal with the one of the biggest record labels in the world at that time. The other members in Black Rose were seasoned LA session musicians. With side help from members of Toto (who would also appear on Cher's later '80s albums.)
The music was very well produced for it's time, as you could imagine. In fact, it was overproduced really. No catchy hooks. Everything really sounds forced to it's limits.
And comically beyond, as Cher's vocals on "Never Should've Started" painfully prove. It was the first single from the album and it was largely ignored by the radio.
But the new sound was alienating to her '60s and '70s pop fans as well as her disco era fans. Some critics thought they were trying to clone Blondie. And that Cher's voice was unsuited to the material she was singing. She went an a small tour to promote the album as The Black Rose Show.
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the 70s. There wasn't a mold if you were
a woman and you were in the entertainment in the 70s. You were probably
a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play
only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/903004
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the 70s. There wasn't a mold if you were
a woman and you were in the entertainment in the 70s. You were probably
a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play
only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/903004
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you
were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were
probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio
would play only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/annwilson412555.html
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you
were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were
probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio
would play only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_wilson.html
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you
were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were
probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio
would play only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_wilson.html
But sales of Black Rose were still very low and copies of the LP could be found in the cut-out budget bins at your local record store nine months after it's release for $1.99.
If there was one set of producers, one band and one song you would have absolutely never made any connection with whatsoever in 1988, it's Stock, Aitken & Waterman, Judas Priest and The Stylistics 1971 hit "You Are Everything".
For those not aware of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, they were the legendary '80s producers of similar sounding UK pop hits-by-numbers. Including Bananarama, Kim Wilde, Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue and Sonia
You couldn't get any more polar opposite musically if you tried. To say nothing of a heavy metal cover version of a '70s soul masterpiece.
But although these are fragments of an unreleased demo, this is actually pretty damn good. Judas Priest did it right. Faithful to the Stylistics original (you don't want to screw with a classic.) But carefully arranged for a metal power ballad.
SA&W kept the drum machines and synthesizers in check. They knew what song this was and what band they were dealing with. The band also recorded some also as yet unreleased original songs from this session. But the band says it's unlikely the whole songs will surface
Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton also recorded guitar solos for a Stock, Aitken & Waterman produced artist, Samantha Fox, and was credited on her 1991 track "Spirit of America".
Read more about it in the Blabbermouth article here.
But Bruce Springsteen's music (and this song in particular) is the type that utterly clashed with the general type of the R&B infected New Wavy dance music that was popular in the dance clubs in 1984 this version was made for. No matter how much drum machine and strange background singers you put in it.
That might be why Bruce Springsteen himself has never re-released this version of "Dancing In The Dark" on any of his compilations.
This single was only released in Europe, where she was living at the time and she starred in the French movie Moi, fleure bleue, (that's Me, Blue Flower (???). The official English title is Stop Calling Me Baby!) She sings on the film's soundtrack, where this song comes from.
She also recorded a French version of this song with a different arrangement.
It's like this; You remember an old record and you finally drop everything and go on a mission.
The record in question came to our family in a box of 45s my uncle gave my mom. He worked for an amusement company which serviced jukeboxes. Every now and then, he'd bring us a box of random 45s. There were a few well worn hits ("Ode To Billie Joe" Bobbie Gentry, "I Love You" by People) and a few lesser Jeannie C. Riley and Otis Redding songs. But one 45 in particular stuck out.
It was a single released on Kapp Records in September of 1971 at the peak of the Donny Osmond craze shortly after he struck teenybopper gold with his cover version of Steve Lawrence's "Go Away Little Girl".
The artist was someone (or some group) named Shawn. Who this monosyllabic Shawn was is completely unknown as far as verifiability goes. I simply hit dead ends everywhere I go trying to track down any deeper session information.
The A-Side was an answer song to "Go Away Little Girl", titled "Please Don't Ask Me To Go Away"
The B-Side was also a cover version. "With Every Beat of My Heart", which was probably better known as a 1970 song from Josie & The Pussycats.
Both of the Shawn songs had some popularity, the novelty A-side of course. But Shawn's B-side cover of "With Every Beat of My Heart" appeared on the 1995 Varese Sarabande compilation CD Bubblegum Classics Volume Two.
The A-Side, "Please Don't Ask Me To Go Away", remains available only on the original Kapp 45.
From the number of these Shawn singles with holes drilled in the label area, which is nearly every copy I have ever seen, it didn't do very well in sales as most "answer songs" tend not to. Drilling holes in the 45 RPM label area or cutting a corner of an album was a practice amongst record labels with returned stock of records that didn't sell initially to prevent retailers from reselling them at full price. These records were what occupied the "cut-out" or "budget bins" for $2.98 or lower in record shops.
But a look at the credits on the single reveals two important clues; Producer Danny Janssen and arranger Jimmie Haskell. Janssen had produced the original Josie & The Pussycats album and was the producer of several early '70s TV based pop acts including The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch LPs. Jimmie Haskell was a pop arranger, best known for his TV work as well as with '60s pop band The Grass Roots. He also arranged horns and strings on Blondie's Autoamerican album.
It was pretty much a one-off novelty single to cash in a pop fad as "Go Away Little Girl" was one of the biggest hits of 1971.
Shawn never had a follow-up single or released a full album. And was never heard from again.
When you think of classical music, K-Tel isn't exactly the first name that comes to mind.
K-Tel, as everyone knows, was the purveyor of microgroove albums of all the pop hits that's print to fit. So what was K-Tel doing messing around with classical music?
The story begins in the UK at the height of the Stars On 45 fad. Louis Clark, former arranger of Electric Light Orchestra had an idea of making a similar medley album, using recognizable pieces of classical music linked together with a disco beat. He thought it could re-energize the classical genre the way the Stars On 45 helped re-energize the Beatles catalog for a new generation. He found an unlikely supporter and partner in K-Tel UK.
UK pressing of Hooked On Classics
However this was far from the first time someone got the idea of blending classical music with contemporary pop music. Since the dawn of pop, classical melodies were used as the framework for many pop songs. Classically styled orchestras called 'Pops' (or "Light") orchestras often made full orchestrated versions of pop music and were staples in the easy listening radio format. Arthur Fiedler and John Williams were the best known conductors of pops orchestras.. The 1960s and '70s were a huge time of classical fusion with pop and rock. Beginning with Simon & Garfunkel, The Moody Blues and various experimental albums using classically styled arrangements of pop hits led to the progressive rock era. And from there, disco was added ("A Fifth of Beethoven" Walter Murphy from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was the '70s most famous example. Even leading an aging Arthur Fiedler into the disco age.)
While classical purists loudly condemned this practice, it's worth noting that there was a side benefit. Classical music even then was largely dying as fewer young people were exposed to the music. These albums, for all their campiness and unconventional approaches did introduce classical elements to a newer generation. It may not be your grandpa's classical music, but they illustrated what could be done with it in contemporary music. If they only got that far it was worth it as classical music, while still an increasingly obscure genre and long vanished off commercial radio, is still very much alive and it's influence still occasionally pops up now and then in contemporary pop and rock music.
Hooked On Classics was released in the UK and became a phenomenal smash hit. However in the US, K-Tel needed to get this out to real record stores, as most of K-Tel's product was sold in discount stores. And to the radio stations. RCA had all these connections. So they arranged a distribution deal through RCA Records in the US.
This is K-Tel's only originally produced US Top 40 hit single, making it to #10 in February of 1982.
Hooked On Classics spawned two sequel albums, each selling far less than the first in 1982 and 1983.
This song will save you $$$ in air conditioning costs. Just the sound of it drops the room temperature a few degrees and you swear you feel a soft, cool ocean breeze go by.
This song was a standard of the days of the "Lite" Adult Contemporary music on the 1980s radio dial. The kind of radio stations that played music and had imaging so light, you had to tether the office radio down to something secure to keep it from simply floating away.
Double (Pronounced DOO-Blay) was a Swiss pop duo of Kurt Maloo and Felix Haug. They formed originally as Ping Pong and in 1982, scored a minor hit in Europe on the German label Big Mouth with the catchy "Rhythm Walk".
The cover of Ping Pong's only LP
Ping Pong reformed as Double in 1983 and released a few European singles before recording their major label debut LP Blue which featured re-recordings of the earlier Double singles as well as "The Captain of Her Heart".
Double went on to release a second album in 1987 Dou3le. But aside from a critically well received single "Devil's Ball" there were no hits at all off this album. And Double called it a day.
Felix Haug sadly died of a heart attack in 2004. Kurt Maloo is still active.
You're probably listening to this and thinking "Hey wait a minute, this isn't a song you can twist to!"
And that's what Chubby Checker was aiming for on his 1982 comeback LP The Change Has Come. To prove he wasn't just a one trick act and he could be a modern Adult Contemporary pop singer as well as as the master of an all time dance classic.
But there's no escaping The Twist and the only single from this LP, "Running" stalled at #92 on the charts. It just wasn't the Chubby Checker we know and love. And Chubby returned to twisting....
Usually, actors make lousy singers. And singers usually make lousy actors. And often, what's beautiful visually needs a LOT of studio gimmickery to pass for acceptable aurally.
There are exceptions.
Sophia Loren looked gorgeous AND could carry a tune, as she did in this 1961 classic.
Sodsai Chaengkij was one of the biggest stars of the 1960s....in Thailand. She was also one of the few Asian pop stars who recorded pop songs with the original English lyrics, as she covered this 1958 Jesse Lee Turner classic...
Play this record at your own risk. Because once it gets inside your head, you can't get it out.
And in a surprisingly good way. The bass and drum playing are insanely catchy, if the lyrics and vocals are simply awful - even for an early bubblegum rock prototype, as this song seems to be.
This 45 was a complimentary extra with the purchase of it's latest colour-coordinated, polyester/cotton blend sportswear line, The Swingers. However I read on WFMU's page on this record that it was an extra with a doll called Bay-Hay Bee Doll. But I've never seen any evidence of this doll (and I really hope such an evil thing does not exist.)
If The Swingers sound familiar, bear in mind there were literally dozens of bands in 1965/1966 called The Swingers, or some variation (The Swingle Singers, The Swingin' Blue Jeans, The Swingin' Medallions, et al.) I'm guessing "swinger" also didn't quite have the sexual connotations at that time that it would be infamous for throughout the '70s.
The song was written by someone named Warren Parker. However, the musician roster on this track as well as any session information have been lost to time (or more likely, never kept. As it was considered a commercial marketing one-off and not a legitimate band.)
This is the original independent Australian self-release of "Down Under" by Men At Work. It was the B-side to their first local single titled "Keypunch Operator", released before the band signed with CBS Records.
This version of "Down Under" sounds almost entirely different from the worldwide famous hit version, which is upbeat and poppy. This original version is much slower, almost reggae in tempo.
....and YOU thought it was a Laura Branigan ORIGINAL all this time, didn't you?....(Tsktsktsk! ;) ) Speaking of the late Laura Branigan, I have a forgotten Laura Branigan tune from the early 1970s coming next month.....
When you think of Giorgio Moroder, you automatically think of kickass '70s and '80s electronic disco-synthpop. Most notably, his collaborations with Donna Summer.
Not '60s surf-bubblegum pop. But you gotta start somewhere and this 1969 single, "Looky Looky" was Giorgio Moroder's first big break in the music business (as "Georgio"). While largely ignored in America, the song went gold in Europe and Canada.
