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...
For those of you in the Midwest right now, I thought this might warm you up a bit.
It's April Stevens, of whom would be better known a few years later as part of a duo with her brother, Nino Tempo when their single "Deep Purple" rocketed to #1 in November 1963 and would have stayed there a few more weeks had fate kept Lee Harvey Oswald at home....
Pat Benatar didn't just open the door for women in rock. This little woman with the HUGE voice absolutely KICKED the door in. Right off the hinges.
But before her mega-platinum career one of as rock's most influential female superstars, she was.....alounge singer?
"Coxon's Army Live from Sam Miller's Exchange Cafe" (Trace Records, 1974), was produced as a reportedly unaired local TV special for Richmond, VA public TV station WCVE and is the very first album she appeared on.
This album also features a cover of "Theme From Shaft" but no indicator if she actually sang it (perhaps the female backing part.) This is a $500 record in mint condition. About 1,000 copies were pressed and that's a VERY short run for any record.
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"Respect" (1974)
"If He Walked Into My Life" (1974)
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" (1974)
"Day Gig" Pat Benatar (1974) This is the first headlining single she ever recorded.
Hot on the heels of the Donny & Marie "If the Carpenters can do it, we can too!" craze of corny sibling pop, comes this slice of sheer pasteurized processed cheese product.
Kristy McNichol had already made a name for herself as Buddy in the ABC drama Family and other ABC TV network productions and Jimmy McNichol (who?) hosted something called "Hollywood Teens". Somebody thought pairing them on a record would move them onto the A-List in no time. So they convinced RCA Records to sign them.
And so came this album. And this was it: A family friendly album of mostly cover versions of early '60s pop songs an average teenage girl (and the parents of) in the late '70s would probably like (they really didn't.) The same stuff that Leif Garrett and Shaun Cassidy were slinging out. The same stuff TV variety shows were filled with.
Interestingly, they got The Chiffons to sing backup on their own song "He's So Fine".
Just before New Years, I tossed up this subject to those in my Facebook circle, just to see if anyone noticed. Many did. So whilst preparing my list of beautifully overlooked subjects I need to cover (I'll wait until my nausea is over before I get around to "twerking" and "The Harlem Shake"), I put this on top.
They're called Rain Lamps. Some called them "swag lamps", but swags are these:
...and they weren't "oil lamps" Which look like these:
Rain lamps were popular in the late '60s and early '70s. They were kind of a lava light for your parents.
They almost always had some kind of Venus sculpture in them, surrounded by plastic foliage (although some had a clock or even a cabin in them.) They worked by using a pump that ran rain lamp oil (which was pretty much mineral oil - any other kind of oil will gum up the pump) over several strands of taut 30-40 lb fishing line to create a slow motion effect of rain. The oil also had to be changed and the lamp and pump cleaned every year or the oil gets rancid. For lighting, you used low wattage soft light of any colour.
You can find them on eBay. But prepare to fork out a lot of money for one in really nice condition. However restoring one takes time and work, but it isn't rocket science.
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