The Spectropop Group Archives presented by Friends of Spectropop

[Prev by Date] [Next by Date] [Index] [Search]

Spectropop - Digest Number 1806



________________________________________________________________________
      
               SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop!
________________________________________________________________________


There are 16 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

      1. What's New Pussycat
           From: Phil X Milstein 
      2. Re: answering the answers
           From: Phil X Milstein 
      3. Jackie & Gayle and Sean
           From: Phil X Milstein 
      4. Re: Roy Orbison bios
           From: Phil X Milstein 
      5. Calendar Girls
           From: Steve Harvey 
      6. Re: Thane Russal & Jimmy Page & The Rolling Stones
           From: Lyn Nuttall 
      7. Re: Thane Russal & Jimmy Page & The Rolling Stones
           From: Scott Swanson 
      8. Re: Ben Raleigh
           From: Rob Pingel 
      9. Re: The Royal Guardsmen
           From: Javed Jafri 
     10. Re: "Where the Boys Are" / "Blue Beat" by Jerry Kennedy
           From: ACJ 
     11. Re: Chuck Sagle
           From: R. Stevie 
     12. Re: Roy Orbison, R.I.P.
           From: R. Stevie 
     13. Re: Roy Orbison bios, etc.
           From: Gary Myers 
     14. Re: Claire Francis and Sonny Childe
           From: Claire Francis 
     15. Les Surfs
           From: Peter Andreasen 
     16. Artie Wayne yester-photo!
           From: Clark Besch 


________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 11:43:44 -0500 From: Phil X Milstein Subject: What's New Pussycat A recent trip through the 2-CD "Tom Jones: The Singles [Plus]" CD (BR Music, Holland, 1995/2002) raises a question that intrigues me. It never occurred to me before, but the intro to Jones' title song to "What's New Pussycat" includes a sound effect, of glass breaking, from the movie itself (which, if I recall correctly, accompanied a scene in which Peter Sellers tosses a rock into the upstairs room of a lady to whom he's hoping to pay, in the parlance of today, a late-night "booty call"; then again I could have that all out of whack, as it's been a while since I've seen the damn thing). I don't recall too many other movie title songs that included ANY pieces of the extramusical soundtrack -- come to think of it, I don't recall ANY other movie songs that do that. Does anyone else know of any? Listening to it reminded me of the early days of MTV. Once the typical MTV video moved past its first wave of straightforward performance films, they began introducing increasingly convoluted storylines (which, coincidentally, DECREASINGLY involved the musical artist). It wasn't long after that that directors began piling extraneous sound effects on top of the musical soundtrack. While these effects make sense in movies, where an outside song is, at least in theory, in service to the screen action, in the music promo film the screen action should theoretically be in service to the song. Thus, SFX in MTV-type videos would annoy the hell out of me. But, for better or worse, the music video hardly even seems to exist anymore, so that's one less annoyance left in my life. Biff bam pow, --Phil M. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 2 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 11:43:21 -0500 From: Phil X Milstein Subject: Re: answering the answers Musica recently hosted Lorna Dune's "Midnight Joey," which, we were informed, was an answer to Joey Powers' "Midnight Mary." Both were written by the same team, Artie Wayne and Ben Raleigh. One the one hand it seems odd to me for a songwriter to come up with the answer to his own original record, yet on the other hand I note that it seems to have been done frequently. This prompts me to ask Artie if answering one's one hit was something of an industry standard; or, if not, how you and Ben happened to be in a position to do so in this case. With all due respect to Artie, as well as to anyone else who might've written or recorded answer records, quite frankly I haven't found too many of them to be all that impressive. They tend, in fact, to be virtual rewrites of the original, only with new names, opposite genders and perhaps a few other details slotted in place. In those cases where the tunes or other elements do vary, they still tend to do so only slightly, perhaps just enough to technically be called a "new" song. Furthermore, although they are meant (I assume) to be funny, most of them are devoid of much in the way of wit. I realize the whole idea of the answer record is, in most cases, to ride the wave of a hit, and that the concept most likely dates back to the early days of the recording industry. But still, while I often find myself sucked into checking out a title that seems like it's in response to a beloved classic in the hope that it will offer some little spark of its own, far more often than not I find myself disappointed by the results. Do others of you share this same experience, or am I simply lucky enough to keep finding the duds while missing the clickers? --Phil M. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 3 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 12:20:40 -0500 From: Phil X Milstein Subject: Jackie & Gayle and Sean Some time back we were discussing Jackie & Gayle, that mediocre girl-duet mainstay of the Shindig show, here. I just found an interesting reference to them in, of all places, Richie Unterberger's interview with Sean Bonniwell of The Music Machine: ----- You knew Roger McGuinn before the Byrds took off. Roger formed the Byrds. Crosby was doing a single in the folk era, and (laughs), I remember him as a single folk artist, he had a very peculiar attitude on and off the stage. He treated the audience and everyone he knew with unbridled contempt. So by the time he got into the Byrds -- and I first saw them -- I was playing with the Wayfarers, and Roger was playing bass for a duo called Jackie and Gail. Jackie was then John Davidson's wife, or she became John Davidson's wife, she was Randy Sparks' wife at the time. And McGuinn was just playing bass fiddle. ----- The complete interview is available at http://www.richieunterberger.com/bonniwell.html . The reason I was looking up Bonniwell info on the Web, by the way, was to try to find out which Wayfarers albums he played on, but I remain in the dark on that question. Anyone know? What I am most after is a photo of him in that group, so any LP he's on that includes him in the cover photo will satisfy. --Phil M. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 17:10:37 -0500 From: Phil X Milstein Subject: Re: Roy Orbison bios S.J.Dibai wrote: > Not sure if this is the one I was talking about, Gary. I've read two > Orbison books. "Dark Star: The Roy Orbison Story" by Ellis Amburn was > pretty good. Amburn was clearly a big fan of his subject, and wrote > with great passion and love. His style was also clear and easy to > follow. Thanks for the tip, S.J. I'd long wondered whether that book was worth reading or not. It might not be perfect, but unless anyone can suggest a better Orbison bio, "Dark Star" it will have to be for now. > But then I read Clayson's book. Or at least as much of it as I could > stand. The writing was unbearable. Clayson jumped all over the place > chronologically, wrote in an emotionally detached style that made him > sound like he didn't really care about Roy, and tried to > overcompensate for his lack of writing talent by being as > grandiloquent (a word I learned from that book) as possible. As long as we're Clayson-bashing, I might as well dive in with my own version. With no other English-language bios of Serge Gainsbourg available at the time, about 10 years ago or so I went to great lengths to procure a copy of Clayson's. I was aware that he had a lot of other titles out there as well, many of them of artists I was equally interested in, and decided that if I liked his take on Gainsbourg I would pick up some of his others. But, I didn't. In fact, I hated it. Although there were bits and chunks of meat in the book, it read like a first draft, which in a way explained how he could be as prolific a writer as he was. I struggled to get through the damn thing, after which I vowed to spare myself further aggravation by avoiding his other titles. If I were his mama, though, I'd urge the guy to invest twice as much time (at least) as he did on each manuscript, even if it means writing half as many books. At least that way the ones he finished would be readable. --Phil M. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 5 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:05:59 -0800 (PST) From: Steve Harvey Subject: Calendar Girls While watching the movie Calendar Girls (about some mature women in Britain that raised money for charity by posing nude for a calendar - Neil Sedaka had nothing to do with this one) today I couldn't help but smile at one of the highpoints in the film. Just when things look bleak two of the characters are vindicated when they walk into a room full of the press. What should be playing as they make their entrance, but "Sloop John B" by those Hawthorne Hotshots. What made it special was that it was the instrumental version off of Stack-of-Tracks. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 6 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 00:10:24 -0000 From: Lyn Nuttall Subject: Re: Thane Russal & Jimmy Page & The Rolling Stones Margaret G Still: > I hear that it was a hit in Australia and nowhere else, but don't > know that for a fact. I saw rumors on an Australian website... that > Gibbons may also have connected with Jimmy Page and that Page, ... > may have played on "Security"- any thoughts on that? I plead guilty to repeating on my website the speculation about Page playing on 'Security'. I found it on a French website ("la participation de Jimmy à la guitare-fuzz n'a pu être certifiée") and repeated it almost apologetically as no more than an interesting rumour. However, the connection between Gibbons & Page is, I believe, well established. URLs seem to be okay here (within reason!): this one of mine has just about everything I know about Thane Russal & 'Security', though it won't answer your more extensive questions: http://www.poparchives.com.au/feature.php?id=B0 There I have linked back to what appeared to be some reliable sources, so maybe those links are worth exploring (especially the Page sessionography), but I'm happy to be corrected if they turn out to be misleading. As to it being a hit in Australia and "nowhere else": it certainly was a hit in some Australian cities (see my page above for chart positions) and it is a fairly well-known oldie down here. "Nowhere else" usually indicates it didn't chart nationally in the UK or USA, which says nothing about regional charts or, for that matter, Malta or Zimbabwe or any other corner of the world we don't have chart books for. Lyn at http://www.PopArchives.com.au -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 7 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 23:43:38 -0800 From: Scott Swanson Subject: Re: Thane Russal & Jimmy Page & The Rolling Stones Margaret Still asks: > I know that Thane Russal was supposedly Doug Gibbons, and that he > sang a "ballad-style" song on Decca in 1965 before he did > "Security." Could be that this was Jackie deShannon/Jimmy Page's > "I Got My Tears to Remind Me" - and it could be that Thane/Gibbons' > band was called The Outsiders. Doug Gibbons released one 45 in April 1965: "I Got My Tears To Remind Me" b/w "I Found Out" (Decca F 12122). The A-side is indeed a version of the DeShannon/Page song, and it's rumored that Page played acoustic guitar on it. Both tracks were produced by Tony Calder with Mike Leander as MD. I've read that Gibbons was indeed a member of a group called The Outsiders at one time, but they may have been totally unrelated to the Outsiders that recorded for Decca later in 1965 (that band was fronted by Mick Wayne). I'm 99% certain that Gibbons and Russal are the same person, as Andrew Oldham mentions it in his bio. > I saw rumors on an Australian website (I don't know if the rules here > permit urls, but I'll provide it if it's okay) that Gibbons may also > have connected with Jimmy Page and that Page, aside from co-writing > that song above, may have played on "Security"- any thoughts on that? It wouldn't surprise me, as Russal, Page and Paul Raven all worked for Andrew Oldham in 1965/66. > Was it common for 60's British musicians to go to Italy to make money? Very. The Primitives and The Rokes come to mind. Basically, a down-on- its-luck band will go wherever the money is! Hope this helps, Scott -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 8 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 16:37:58 -0000 From: Rob Pingel Subject: Re: Ben Raleigh Great to read anything about Ben Raleigh. His name is familiar to anyone who paid any attention to songwriter credits in the 60's. With over 700 listings in BMI, he deserves to be in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. My own list of favorites by this prolific lyricist would include: Dead End Street - Lou Rawls; I'm Stepping Out of the Picture - Johnny Maestro; Once a Fool - Lesley Miller; That's How Heartaches Are Made - Baby Washington; Years of Tears - Ronnie Dove; Strangers - Jack Scott; Your Other Love - Connie Francis; Baby Tomorrow - Paul Jones; Wild and Wonderful - Murmaids. Rob Pingel -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 9 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 22:58:04 -0800 From: Javed Jafri Subject: Re: The Royal Guardsmen Clark Besch: > That bloody "Buck toothed beaver" has risen again! Funny, but while > doing radio chart research this week, I noticed CJCA in Edmonton, > Alberta Canada charted "Squeaky" at #26 up from 36 on December 18, > 1966. On January 22, 1967 it was #1, but as "Snoopy vs the Red > Baron"! Both were on Quality. My guess is that word got out about > the Snoopy version and it quickly was re-thought to issue the proper > version. That's probably why it's hard to find. Which would you > choose? A "funny lookin' dog" or a "buck toothed beaver"?? Not quite Clark. I'm just looking at a copy of the CHUM Chart (1050 CHUM Toronto) from December 12, 1966 and Snoopy Vs The Red Baron makes it's debut at # 21. It is also the CHUM Dinger of the week (highest rising song on the 50 song chart). The song eventually spent four weeks stuck at # 2, kept off the top spot by I'm A Believer/Not Your Stepping Stone. A big hit in Toronto, it was number 17 on the year end top 67 of 67 survey. Javed -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 10 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 23:04:46 -0500 From: ACJ Subject: Re: "Where the Boys Are" / "Blue Beat" by Jerry Kennedy For Dave O'Gara: That same story is told in a long, extensive article about Connie Francis in an issue of Goldmine magazine that I still have. My guess is, it's a true story. I also have the Jerry Kennedy single "Blue Beat" (promo), on Smash. The horns are a little off-key, but the proto-reggae rhythm is nice, and there's some fine solo acoustic-guitar work from Mr. Kennedy (a studio guitarist before he went into production). ACJ -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 11 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 04:58:02 -0000 From: R. Stevie Subject: Re: Chuck Sagle Re Chcuk Sagle, checketh this out: http://www.geocities.com/rsmko/goods.html -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 12 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 05:25:56 -0000 From: R. Stevie Subject: Re: Roy Orbison, R.I.P. I miss Roy. Checketh this out: http://www.angelfire.com/tn2/bobloyce/orbison.html http://www.angelfire.com/tn2/bobloyce/ R. Stevie Bloomfield NJ -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 13 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 22:13:52 -0800 From: Gary Myers Subject: Re: Roy Orbison bios, etc. S.J. Dibai: > ... then I read Clayson's book. The writing was unbearable ... tried > to overcompensate for his lack of writing talent by being as > grandiloquent (a word I learned from that book) as possible ... > However, Gary, I don't recall there being a lot of factual errors in > this bio. Could there be yet another Orbison bio? Your description of the writing sounds right on - it seemed as if the author's primary purpose was to show how many words he knew, especially words that might make him sound hip. But, although I don't recall any specifics, I'm sure that there were also several factual errors. Also, I had posted my review of the book at amazon.com and, when I went to look for it just now, it's not with Clayson's book, so maybe there are *2* unreadable Orbison bios. Me, earlier: > Stroud was jamming with Buddy Miles (on guitar) and a bass player. > Miles had been tired to tutor Stroud on drums. While Miles might have, indeed, been tired, first he was HIRED! gem -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 14 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:59:05 EST From: Claire Francis Subject: Re: Claire Francis and Sonny Childe Mick on Sonny Childe's "Two Lovers" 45: > So Claire, what memories does this baby stir up for you? Tell > us how you found working with (arranger) Alan Tew. Well, as > you'll see, Sonny certainly looks like Sam Cooke. I can reveal > that he also sounds very much like him. It's claimed on the back > cover of his LP that he was Sam's nephew. Having been once married > to Sonny, I'm sure Claire can tell us whether that claim is true, > or a load of old BS. I think I know the answer, but over to you, > Claire. Either way, gorgeous cape! Mick my love, thank you so much for playing another Claire Francis production in musica. And thanks one more time for sending me the whole LP!!! Here are my comments (besides hugs and kisses)... As far as my memory goes about working with Alan Tew... for now, it's not great. It would probably help if I could see a pix of him, maybe I could remember more. The thing that does come to my mind - and I don't know if this is off the wall or not - but I get a vague image of a man that has a goatee and that he is about 5'8 or so and he is slightly "pudgie", dark brown hair and maybe a bit thin on top. That is the image I got the moment I saw/read the name Alan Tew. Now I could be totally wrong! The other thing that comes to my mind is that he was a very, professional, quick, and "cheery" man and a very accommodating arranger and conductor - kind is a better word. As far as hearing my production, wow! it was just wonderful hearing that part of my work in London once again, I know I really enjoyed producing that record. As far as hearing the voice of my ex....well, that was really a trip down memory lane. The whole story is in my book, but you can read a little bit about that in my "Bio" on my website. It is a lucky thing that my husband Norman met Sonny way back when, because I played the LP for him. He just loved it because it was my work! We all agree that Sonny looks and sounds like Sam Cooke. And I swear as a young and naive girl in her twenties, I truly believed him when he told me he was Sam's nephew. But now that I'm a little older, wiser and maybe not so gullible, I don't really believe it! As far as the cape goes, it was mine. I lent it to Sonny for the pix. Talk about memory lane...yikes! Another very helpful and totally mind-blowing mp3 that I received from Phil C. was my production of The Vikings record and The Youth record. I am so amazed! It still blows my mind that someone would find something by me in a record shop today. I was so overwhelmed that I cried. Man oh man, what memories can do. Phil said: > Incidentally, 'The Youth' sounds awfully familiar. What's the > story there? Well when I heard it, at first I thought it was Bob Marley!! (for a moment). I would really love to know who that singer is today, that I recorded 39 years ago. Actually, the singer from the Vikings on "It's A Bad News Feeling" also sounds very familiar - l think he went on to be a big name. I would appreciate it if you could play these records (A & B sides of both) to the S'pop nation and play them in musica so that maybe they can tell me who these lead singers are? The S'pop group KNOWS EVERYTHING!!!! I would love to hear what they have to say. Thanks again for playing my songs in musica. I can't help feeling special when I see my name up there. It is definitely a link to my past that I had totally buried because of so many medical problems in my family. But as I hear these songs and productions today, I say "Did I really do that?!" Love & Light, A grateful Claire Francis http://www.clairefrancis.com -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 15 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:14:11 -0000 From: Peter Andreasen Subject: Les Surfs Vlaovic B wrote: > Lots of talk about French artistes leads me to ask about one of my > favourite French acts of the 60s. Les Surfs! Why haven't they > been brought up lately? I ask how many 6 piece brother sister acts > of Madagascar origins, producing French R&R were there? Were they > really popular in their time? Great stuff though. Any recommended > compilations? Les Surfs have 3 CDs out on Magic records, easy to buy directly from their web-site. All great stuff from 1963 to 1966, including 5 covers of Spectortracks: Be my baby, baby I love you, why do lovers...and Do I love you. The CDs include French, Italien, Spanish and a couple of English versions. Some of the Spanish ones are not as clear in sound as the rest. Two older CDs, also from magic Vol.1 and 2. can probably be found at Gemm, Musicstack etc. Universal has a compilation out called "Tendrea annees 60" with 15 tracks - Try Amazon.fr. Reviens vite et oublie. Peter. -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
Message: 16 Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 16:42:51 -0000 From: Clark Besch Subject: Artie Wayne yester-photo! Ok Artie, We saw you in 74, now let's "Flashback" (still wanna hear this Wayne/5D song in stereo!) to ten years earlier. Posted to the photo section (since I can still post on there), Artie Wayne: Automated Man in deep reflective mood! Enjoy, Clark -------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]-------------------
SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop! End

Click here to go to The Spectropop Group
Spectropop text contents © copyright 2002 Spectropop unless stated otherwise. All rights in and to the contents of these documents, including each element embodied therein, is subject to copyright protection under international copyright law. Any use, reuse, reproduction and/or adaptation without written permission of the owners is a violation of copyright law and is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.