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SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop!
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There are 10 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: For the love of Mike Clifford
From: Frank
2. Little Stevie, child dentist
From: Steve Harvey
3. Carole King's "It Might As Well Rain Until September" demo
From: Rodney Rawlings
4. John Summers
From: Chris
5. Re: Oldies Choice radio
From: Justin McDevitt
6. Re: Columbia early sixties picture 45s
From: Tom Taber
7. Re: For the love of Mike Clifford
From: Gary Myers
8. Re: Raga Rock
From: Various
9. Re: Oldies Choice radio
From: Mikey
10. Carole King demos
From: Mark Hill
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 09:48:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Frank
Subject: Re: For the love of Mike Clifford
In my unending quest to find obscure songs of Leiber and Stoller, I've
encountered Mike Clifford. Definitely an under-rated vocalist.
"She's Just Another Girl," B-side to "Close To Cathy" (United Artists
489) is an amazing song, from L&S' "Kurt Weill" period of approx. '62
- '64. It features, I believe, the first use of the word "ego" in a
pop song.
"What To Do With Laurie," A-side of "That's What They Said," is another
highly unusual L&S song, with an Elizabethian flavor that presages all
that "Lady Jane" type stuff that came a few years later.
The strangest Clifford 45 I have is "Do Your Own Thing"/"You Better
Start Singing Soon" (American International A-158, 1968?). The A-side
is a later L&S song which was also covered by Brook Benton. I think
this is the same Mike Clifford, but it's more of a white-boy soul kinda
side...very hard to describe...
I've never seen this one listed in any reference books. It's a real
head-scratcher...love oddball records like these.
Best, Frank
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 10:54:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Harvey
Subject: Little Stevie, child dentist
Re the new S'pop home page photo: Looks like Miss Ronnie is a
little peeved at not being the center of attention this time
around. Dee Dee is awfully cute in that shot. Why is Little
Stevie looking at Clay's fillings? He's not fooling anyone.
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 19:01:19 -0000
From: Rodney Rawlings
Subject: Carole King's "It Might As Well Rain Until September" demo
I wonder how many know that Carole King's hit record "It Might as
Well Rain Until September" (a personal favorite of mine) IS the demo,
targeted I think to Bobby Vee, and was released as is because the A&R
man involved liked Carole's voice.
Perhaps this is old news at this board, but it's pertinent to the
current threads.
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 10:08:10 -0000
From: Chris
Subject: John Summers
I've recently come across the UK artist John Summers on Pye on the
Ripples compilations, yet I can't find any more information on him
as the sleeve notes are very sparse. Both sides of "Looking at
windows/don't fool yourself" are as good as soft pop as I've heard,
and apart from a teaser in that he did several singles for the
labels, there's no other mentions. Can anyone on the group provide
me with more information please? Even google provides very few hits.
Chris
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 14:08:28 -0400
From: Justin McDevitt
Subject: Re: Oldies Choice radio
Hello Spectropoppers,
Doug Ohlemeier's comments regarding Oldies Choice radio, (available
through both Cable and Satelite Tv) echo my own observations of this
channel. When tuning in, just when I'm started to get a little bored
with the playlist, they sneak in an obscure track like Wait For Me
by the Playmates that keeps me listening.
I would concur that there is a heavier emphasis on the pre-1960s era
and a shortage of selections from the 1964-67 timeframe; my favorite
years of Rock's history.
Some months ago, I obtained the telephone # of the company that
programs this channel along with the other Cable/satelite choices.
When I was finally put in touch with someone in authority, I offered
the opportunity to put together a list of tracks to be reviewed for
possible inclusion on the playlist. I also recommended that more
attention be given to songs from the mid to late 60s. era.
It was as if I'd said something OBSCENE, OR MADE A RUDE NOISE. The
idea of a lowly listener making such a suggestion was ludicrous and
something that was "not done".
I was informed that such a recommendation was not possible to
implement and I got he strong impression that the quality and
diversity of the playlist was more than adequate; (thank you very
much". So I bid adieu with my musical tail between my legs and
chalked this up to corporate egos being trifled with.
Justin McDevitt, (now an oficial resident of Saint Paul MN)
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 05:59:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tom Taber
Subject: Re: Columbia early sixties picture 45s
I recall Andy Williams getting the "line-drawing" treatment (on a green
label Columbia 45, perhaps?), and suspect Johnny Mathis did too. Others?
Tom Taber
whose secret CD project should be a reality in 2 weeks!
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 10:22:26 -0700
From: Gary Myers
Subject: Re: For the love of Mike Clifford
We (the Portraits) backed Clifford on a show around late '67. It was
a fashion show at I. Magnin in Beverly Hills and it included Don &
the Goodtimes (who did a very long Beatles medley and stayed on
longer than they were supposed to), Ian Whitcomb (who played some
ragtime piano, but did not do his hit), and a non-performing
appearance by Boyce & Hart. Each act did only 2-3 songs. I think we
did both sides of our first Sidewalk release and backed Clifford on
two. I think one of them was "More". He was also on Sidewalk at that
time. Mike Curb (Sidewalk) also tried a few others who had passed
their hit years - Terry Stafford, Johnny Crawford and Chad Stuart.
I liked Clifford's "One Boy Too Late" (which, I think, was also done
by Rick Nelson), and I'm probably one of the few people who actually
used to do "Close To Cathy" on gigs. :-)
gem
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 20:55:15 +0100
From: Various
Subject: Re: Raga Rock
Dear members, for your convenience, recent posts on the
subject of Raga Rock have been assembled into a handy
compendium:
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There were a number of Jazz musicians interested in diffrent time
signatures who investigated Indian music. The first pop musicians
who appeared in print talking about sitars were George Harrison,
David Crosby and Donovan.
Lord Sitar's version of Jumoping Jack Flash and I can see for miles
still get plays on the Mod and EZ scenes. i understand Big Jim
Sullivan played Lord Sitar before gigging with Tom Jones. he
definitely recorded Sitar beat in 1967.
Gabor Szabo recorded Jazz Raga in 1966 and dubbed sitar onto tracks
like Paint it Black. I am sure he did the same a couple of years
later with Light My Fire.
Find out more about raga rock on:
http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com/SITARBEAT.html
Frankm
reflections on northern soul Saturday's two thirty pm:
http://www.radiomagnetic.com or listen to an archive show:
http://www.radiomagnetic.com/archive/rnb.php
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There was a bootleg CD series out a few years ago compiling all sorts
of sitar-influenced songs taken from lots of LPs and 45s dating from
the magic '60s and early '70s. Among the songs booted was "Archimed's
Pad", extracted from a CD my friend Neal Skok and I released on CD in
1995 on our official release "Of Them And Other Tales" by TRUTH. This
band was comprised of 3 former members of Them plus an American rhythm
section. TRUTH guitarist Jim Armstrong had a big interest in Indian
music in the late '60s, learned how to play the sitar, and began
incorporating elements of this genre into (post-Van Morrison) Them
recordings as early as 1967. Check out the two recent Them reissue CDs
on Rev-ola to hear several versions of Jim's playing on "Square Room"
and "Just One Conception". Our TRUTH CD features "Archimed's Pad",
an all-instrumental version of Square Room and to my ears the most
fully realized expression of the theme. On all of these numbers Jim is
using his electric guitar to emulate the sounds inspired by sitar.
However, Jim also does a shorter number on the CD called "Sonic Sitar"
playing his actual sitar. (It is still sitting in his closet in
Northern Ireland, where he leads the Jim Armstrong Band these days
playing blues across Europe.)
If you need more info on the TRUTH CD, write me off-list.
John Berg, Seattle area
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For my money, a song pretty well has to have sitar or tabla or some
Indian instruments to qualify it as "raga rock". Certainly there
were folk songs with a kind of droning structure before The Beatles
introduced the sitar to rock n roll but without the "commercialization"
of Indian music, I'm pretty confident there wouldn't have been any rock
songs with Indian sounds. I spent a little time looking for these kinds
of tunes but I'm not sure I could make a list. Noel Harrison did some
things like that. Then there's the Bobby Callender record (which is
pretty wild). The early Poppy Family had two Indian musicians actually
in the band, one playing tabla, the other I can't remember.
I guess Donovan did some stuff without sitar that could still be called
"raga rock" so I guess there is such a thing.
Then there's all the stuff with electric sitar but I'm not sure that
would qualify. Most of the stuff I would call "raga rock" is
instrumental. Bill Plummer played on a lot of those (sometimes with
Gabor Szabo). As you can see, I'm not much of a listmaker.
AZ
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In 1967 Jimmy Page, my studio musician friend from my first trip to
the U.K., had just joined the Yardbirds and invited me to come
opening night. Although he was happy with the enthusiastic reception
he and the group received.......he was really excited about
something else.
He couldn't wait to get back to his hotel to show me and my friends
his new "Toy"...a Sitar. I had been familiar with the sound.......but
had never heard Rock and Roll riffs like "Satisfaction" played on the
traditional instument the way Jimmy played it.
I remember telling him about a New York studio guitarist friend of
mine, Vinny Bell, who invented the "Bellzuki", an electric sitar. I
wonder if that's what he used on his later records?
Artie Wayne http://artiewayne.com/
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 15:56:05 -0400
From: Mikey
Subject: Re: Oldies Choice radio
Justin....in the case of what happened to you with the radio
programming....if it were ME, I'd write a letter to the
program director expressing your dissatisfaction with their
programming, and also tell then you will be cancelling based
on that. I think that may get their attention.
Mikey
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 16:12:09 -0400
From: Mark Hill
Subject: Carole King demos
Diane aka. Hurdygirl writes:
> I remember reading that Dusty Springfield actually collected Carole
> King demos. Dusty thought they were works of art in their own right.
Mark Hill wonders:
This has me wondering what the chain of availability to "collect
Carole King demos" would be. How do they get from the demo stage into
various hands (like Dusty's) and ultimately to ours? Acetates? Vinyl
records? Tapes? How many copies would there initially be? And how
were they distributed? How rare of a chance is it for us to hear
something like a Carole King demo? Any insight would be appreciated.
Incidentally, that demo of "Go Away Little Girls" was one of the
greatest gifts yet, provided through members to the Musica files.
Many thanx!
"Dr. Mark" Hill *
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