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Volume #0379 January 28, 2000
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Here's the beat and the feel of today's young music
Subject: Cookies and company
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 01:21:10
From: Brian Ferrari
To: Spectropop!
--
Hello all;
I am usually several digests behind in my Spectropop
reading - this keeps me from posting, as my questions and
comments are usually expressed by other listmembers. You
are such a knowledgeable bunch. I feel like a student
among you.
Here are a few thoughts I wanted to share:
RE: Soft Pop - has anyone else noticed that Gary Troxel of
the Fleetwoods has been getting considerable press
coverage lately? He and his wife are trying to gain
visitation rights to their grandchild. Their son has
passed away, his wife has remarried and is not allowing
them to visit the grandchild as much as they would like. I
believe this case has gone to the Supreme Court. It has
raised many questions regarding the rights of grandparents.
This was the lead story on NBC Nightly News recently. I
have also read several articles on the case. None of them
mention Gary's notoriety in The Fleetwoods, but he is
instantly recognizable: that same boyish face is still
there.
RE: The South Bank show featuring Cher - these often air
on the Bravo cable station. I would imagine that this
episode will surface here in the US.
RE: Fictitious group names - Excluding singer/songwriters
such as Ellie Greenwich, the winner in this category has
to be The Cookies. It amazes me how many different group
names they had songs released under. I am always
discovering (thanks to the liner notes on many UK
compilations) different groups that were actually The
Cookies:
The Cinderellas ("Baby Baby I Still Love You",
"Please Don't Wake Me", "Good Good Lovin")
The Honeybees ("One Wonderful Night", "She Don't
Deserve Him", "Some Of Your Lovin")
Bach's Lunch ("Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow")
The Cupcakes ("The Pied Piper")
The Palisades ("Make The Night A Little Longer")
I am also pretty sure that they were The Emeralds ("I
Wanna Make Him Mine", "Did You Ever Love A Guy", "Dancing
Alone").
Anyone else know of groups that were actually The Cookies?
Any additions to this list would be helpful.
I would also love to know anything about The Cookies.
Earl-Jean McCrea is pretty easy to identify on record.
Different sources site either Margaret Ross or Dorothy
Jones as the belty lead singer of numbers like "I Never
Dreamed" and many of the above named recordings.
Can anyone give any backround into this amazing group?
What happened to them after the 60's heyday?
One of my favorite all-time girl group records is their
1967 Warner Brothers single "Wounded". Anyone know if they
recorded other sides at Warner Brothers?
Thanks!
Brian Ferrari
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Subject: Hello everybody
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 10:29:44
From: claudia
To: Spectropop!
--
I am looking for a copy of the cd box set
THE BRILL BUILDING SOUND: SINGERS & SONGWRITERS
WHO ROCKED THE 60'S.
I will pay you well for it.
Thank you
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: marketing and studio musicians
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:08:28
From: Nat Kone
To: Spectropop!
--
>Subject: Very true
>From: Carol Kaye
>You should have seen the ages of the studio musicians who
>played on all the rock and roll hit records we put out in
>the 60s LA recording scene.
>Some of the record co's in the mid 60s tried to record
>with their own artists' road groups, thinking they could
>save the studio musicians' fees
>Well, that lasted a few short weeks, they humbly begged us
>to come back to work for them, They didn't try that again
> until the 70s when the groups like Toto (I taught David
>Hungate btw, the bassist), some were able to play their own
>music well.
>
>It's got something to do with marketing alright. Do you
>think the Beach Boys would have sold as well if the public
>knew (back then) who really played on their recordings?
Okay look. I do remember having my little teenage heart
broken when I found out about who actually played on
some of my favorite records.
Or more to the point, who didn't play on the records.
And I'm sure I could still be surprised - and
heartbroken - to hear about other records which, to this
day, I still assume were recorded by the actual group.
Like Paul Revere and the Raiders. I wouldn't want to
find out that Drake Levin and Smitty didn't play on any
of those records.
Or that Zal Yanovsky didn't play on the Lovin' Spoonful
records.
And there's also enough teenager still in me to find it
incredibly cool that there's someone on this list who
played on so many of my favourite records.
BUT I loved the Byrds when I first heard them because it
was a beautiful, exciting (new) sound. I loved them
before I knew what their names were or what they looked
like. And I don't much care who decided that they would
record a Dylan song or that they would try to impose
electric instruments on folk songs or folk harmonies.
I'd still like to think that McGuinn and Clark had
something to do with finding that sound but I didn't
love the record just because I thought it was a bunch of
drug-taking hippies who made it. I loved it because it
wasn't Fabian.
I was like ten years old. Everyone was older than me.
I didn't know that some of them weren't that much older
than me. I'm not sure how much I would have cared to
find out that some of the musicians were in their early
thirties rather than in their early twenties.
I think it's really cool that Ms. Kaye played on Mel
Torme's "rock" records, which I (now) have and love.
But it's just plain silly to claim that it was marketing
that made me love Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" album
and prefer it to Mel's hipster cover of the title tune.
I'm not going to claim purity for Donovan and utter
crass commercialism for Mel. (Though on a side note, I'm
still amazed to hear that Mel apparently distanced
himself from his great Claus Ogerman produced "I'm
Coming Home baby" LP)
But there's a difference between the two of them. And
marketing and image don't cover it. I don't know who
actually played on Donovan's album - and I loved the
whole album, still do - but I have to believe that
somewhere in the process, there was a musician trying to
find a sound, trying to express himself. And I think
that came through to me as a kid.
And if I even heard Mel's cover at the time and if I
tossed it on the heap with all the other similar
"attempts", it wasn't just the failure of Mel's
marketing machine. Or my youthful gullibility.
And one more thing. If marketing to the youth market
was so effective, how come we laughed at so many of
their attempts?
(Of course, we who laughed then became the marketers and
we did learn from their mistakes.)
Nat
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Subject: It's not all marketing
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 14:04:30
From: "Joseph Scott"
To: Spectropop!>
--
Hi Nat, I think you and I are on the same page about
this stuff. You said: "I can listen to Andy Williams
singing 'God Only Knows' and love it because he has a
beautiful voice, it's a nice arrangement and it's a
great song. What's not to like?" ALRIGHT! Exactly, this
is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
I didn't say it's all marketing. I said some people have
talent and some don't, and the *rest* is marketing.
Totally apart from marketing, some music is great and
some is poor, no doubt about that.
Re the intentions of the performers, I think intentions
can be very interesting to go research in their own
right, but I don't think there's much correspondence at
all between "pure" intentions (or whatever you want to
call it) and great product, e.g., Gabor Szabo and Eric
Burdon had very genuine commitments to the Summer Of
Love and its associated notions, much more so than some
of the other artists who made Summer Of Lovish stuff,
but I don't think that in of itself can or did make
their music better than the other artists'.
Or, to look at it from another of the many possible
angles, often the studio musicians were doing their own
thing anyway -- Carol Kaye played bass in exactly the
same funky fast style on Mel Torme's "Games People Play"
that she did on the Four Tops' "Eleanor Rigby"; Howard
Roberts' amazing guitar solos for the Electric Prunes c.
'68 were in the exact same style as his for David
Axelrod; Tommy Tedesco played exactly the same in places
with Zappa as with Simon and Garfunkel, etc. (Digression
-- cool comparison: Carol Kaye on bass on the Four Tops'
"Reach Out I'll Be There" and on S&G's "Scarborough Fair."
Isolate the one track with the electric bass in the
stereo mix of "Scarborough" and you can especially hear
the similarity. E.g. listen to Carol's last bit, near
the end of "Scarborough," and then "Reach Out." Both
recorded in L.A. in '66.) To whatever extent the studio
musicians are doing their own thing, again the
*intentions* of the singers are not too relevant to how
good the record sounds.
Supposing Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" is better than
Mel's (which as Carol points out is subjective anyway),
then there's some reason for that, but I'm not at all
sure it's the matter of who wrote it. Billie Holiday,
Elvis Presley, Roger Daltrey, and Anita Kerr, e.g., all
do it for me singing other people's songs.
Carol, thanks for your comments, and thanks for being
Carol Kaye! :-) Can you tell us more about Dennis Budimir?
He seems to have played on everything, every style.
Best,
Joseph Scott
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: Prim schoolteacher???????
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 15:32:27
From: Jamie LePage
To: Spectropop!
Carol wrote:
> You should have seen the conventional clothing we all
> wore, the butch haircuts, and I looked like a prim
> school-teacher (and still do), etc.
Nope. Uh-uh. No way. Check out these two photos, people:
http://www.carolkaye.com/images/ckayek04.jpg
http://www.carolkaye.com/images/shades.jpg
No schoolteacher of mine was ever THAT groovy. Dig those
shades! And the boots! Hipper than hip!
Seeing these record date photos of the session players and
listening to session tapes with the off mic exchanges
between takes help me to form a mental picture of what it
must have been like to record in those days. Fascinating,
and it makes the records all the more interesting to
listen to.
Besides, ultimately, the grooviest way to dress IS in
conventional clothing. It works. It always has. It always
will. I bet none of you session musicians ever got booted
out of Martoni's for being inappropriately dressed! (not-
so-subtle Sonny Bono reference here).
And while I am gushing here about your photos and all, just
let me add thanks once again for sharing your comments with
us here, Carol.
Jamie "chinos and oxfords rule!" LePage
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: designed for ignorant consumers of pop
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:10:32
From: DJ Jimmy B
To: Spectropop!
--
In a message dated 1/26/0 12:39:31 PM, you wrote:
>You should have seen the ages of the studio musicians who
>played on all the rock and roll hit records we put out in
>the 60s LA recording scene. And the fact that a great deal
>of them were fine jazz musicians, and the rest mostly
>big-band musicians, hardly a rocker on those recordings.
>
>And around the younger newer bunch of producers (who we
>quickly surmised didn't know much about producing actually
>but they had the confidence and the money to hire us), we
>had to keep saying to each other in our group "shhhh....
>don't tell anyone we play jazz"....in spite of themselves,
>we got them hits anyway.
Thanks for the perspective Carol. This only feeds my
reasoning behind all this "fake" music I listen to these
days. If the "real thing" was faked to the degree you say
(and I absolutely believe every word you say) then it is
the real fake music. That makes the fake music I am into
(e.g. Johnny Mann Singers doing "Roses And Rainbows Are You")
all the more real than what I thought was real but was
fooled by the "real" jazz players. Because they (the
alleged fakers) weren't really faking it, that's really
what they did, semi-soft versions of "real" harder rockin'
things. Although the players for Johnny Mann probably
played for The Byrds as well. But that makes the jazz
players fakers too and perhaps in part has earned them the
"jazzbo" label in some circles. After all if it isn't "out"
and improvised, then its too structured and "pop", which is
fake and designed for those oh-so ignorant consumers of
that pop we play for hire, rather than playing "real" jazz.
Or something like that....
Jimmy Botticelli
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: Byrds
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:26:32
From: Javed Jafri
To: Spectropop!
--
Carol Kaye wrote:
> The Byrds had their studio musicians too do their things
> too, altho' evidently Roger did play some elec. 12-string
> on his stuff, yet he had the very conventional Dennis
> Budimer do some of that too.....Dennis always brought his
> lunch to work, still is a stick-in-the-mud but a helluva
> great great jazz guitarist too....he made more money than
> Tommy Tedesco doing studio work.
Carol,
I thought that the Byrds played on most of their first
album as well as subsequent recordings. The commonly held
belief is that Roger was the only group member to play on
Mr. Tambourine Man but that does not apply as far as
their other recorded output is concerned. They used
outside musicians (i.e.Van Dyke Parks, High Masekela)
even on later recordings but the group members were the
predominant musicians.
Javed (still lurking) Jafri
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: Teddy Bears Greatest Hits
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:07:27
From: Paul Urbahns
To: Spectropop!
--
Anyone having this on CD please get in touch with me privately.
Paul Urbahns
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: "Mike Alway's Diary"
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:13:06
From: DJ Jimmy B
To: Spectropop!
--
In a message dated 1/26/0 12:39:31 PM, you wrote:
>Mike Alway, who in the 80's ran the absolutely fabulous,
>utterly excessive and gorgeous El Records label
Hear Kahimi Karie sing of Mike on "Mike Alway's Diary"
Its a real nice modern Japanese soft pop thing. Real 6T's
feel as only the Japanese (with a few notable exceptions)
seem capable of releasing these days.
Jimmy Botticelli
--------------------[ archived by Spectropop ]--------------------
Subject: More....
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:23:26
From: Carol Kaye
To: Spectropop!
--
Elsewhere someone wrote about how the traveling musicians
don't get the compliments like studio musicians, that many
of them could have done the studio work back in the 60s....
and while I agree with this premise, here's what I wrote
in response - tho't you all might be interested in this:
>>>>It's this very point as to why the general public has
little or no idea of our contributions and generally fine
performance values on record dates. They never come into
contact with studio musicians.
Sure, there's many fine musicians out there, and if they
all wanted to move to LA, work their tails off 12-16
hours a day, be able to invent lines for ALL styles of
music, and then later, read 16ths like they were quarter
notes, without mistakes...and not only that, but put up
with some weird stuff in the studios...the hours, the
coffee - eating out of machines, the running from date to
date, the sometimes put-downs from the rock producers who
at times may have felt intimitated at the expertise of the
fine musicians.....
You can't mail your parts in....you have to live there and
play your best at all times, and this includes creativity
(back then, not necessary now I think from what I hear), be
directly on time (the musician who was late, was liable for
all costs of overtime per Union rules), but this took years
of previous experiences in all forms of music, years either
playing big-band music, jazz and/or latin, etc. including
knowing the little-known jazz formats which really are the
commerical pop formatted arranging of the 60s hits...anyone
could have done it if they had all these credentials and
lived in LA and had a resonable am't of talent, were good
people, totally reliable (no drugs, no booze, were on time,
played consistently well, and with no lip, and no
falling asleep on all the boring dates etc.).
No, we didn't take "direction", they counted on our
expertise for that on record dates and most us by 1965
were in our 30s (some in their 40s) as Perry Botkin and I
were discussing today over lunch. (note: Perry arranged
the fine hit of "Ebb Tide" by the Righteous Bros.)
Later on in the movie scoring, TV film, yes, working for
Quincy Jones, Goldsmith, LeGrand, Grusin, Williams, etc.,
you took very strict direction by the musical conductor
who expected only the FINEST performance from the elite
orchestras who worked the film studios, and read every
note perfect (and yes, on some parts, the rhy. section
did get to create some parts but mainly, it was cut and
dried reading) but there was a ton of competition, if you
started making mistakes you were out totally....never to
get back in.
I don't mean to put-down all the fine touring musicians,
not at all....yes we all did that in the rugged 50s, been
there done that - also did a ton of different combos,
big-bands, all kinds of music gigs, 03 -4-5 times a week in
addition to the sometimes traveling, and thank God the
opportunity arose for musicians to finally make a decent
living in the studios, even if it meant anonmity...while
traveling musicians rec'd some sort of a name, it was a
trade-off.
But the last 20 years have revealed a lot of mistaken
beliefs have continued on and developed into misleading
untruths about who cut the rock hits....and sorry, but
you're wrong...practically every 60s group was cut by
studio musicians.
This fact will come out in the Russ Wapensky credits book
due out this year, he'll be finishing it very soon he
said with the next trip research trip out to finish the
little odds and ends.
And the recording musicians would be no good on the
"visual" stage, we sat with motionless expressions (like
much of the fine 50s jazz musicians did too live) as we
concentrated on the music we invented a lot on and
recorded. The stage requires live visuals, and that's an
art in itself.
And we worked every day and made a living out of music
and are very grateful we could do that...not too many get
that chance, the discipline is so rigid, plus the coming
together of so many talents and start of the rock era.
So many young men who really didn't have much experience
playing got stars in their eyes during the late 60s and
70s, moved to LA, sort of tho't they could just "hop
right into studio work" as if it was a "who you know"
type of proposition...and they're still sore years later
that they "didn't get the chances like others" in their
own perceptions of what happened that they didn't get "in"
- yet they went out and made more money over-all then we
did in their day-jobs later as a rule!
None of us had "star-itis" when we did studio work (I
never wanted to do studio work to start with for one,
others were like me but we had families to take care of
and then it got interesting, a challenge to make a hit
record "happen", very different to how musicians perceive
what it's like to do studio work....
We were happy to be playing music day and night every day
of the week, and you get very good at what you do playing
that much every day....it takes literally years to get
the concepts that we had to do the challenging job at
creating fine-selling good-music recordings (something we
could use more of today I think), no matter the style for
everyone.
What they fail to realize is that it takes years of
experience before you ever get the chance to do studio
work.
And while many fine musicians from all over, like Biddy
Bastien, fine bassist in Minneapolis, uncle of the great
Jim Hughart - have seen many a fine musician out there
who could have done it, would have fit right in (and we
HELPED many fit right in too, yours truly got many a
deserving studio musician started who later went on to be
first call), but you had to live here, play your tail off,
get noticed, and then it's up to you to fulfill what they
expected of you.
The tapes don't lie as we used to say.....there were some
politics with trombone and string players, I'm sure, but
not with the rhythm sections which were the backbone of
the hits.
Wynton Marsalis' father came out here even to try, saw
the business thing, the rock and roll and moved right
back to New Orleans, can't say I don't blame him. He's
more famous now than any of us (if fame is the thing
anyone is after, I don't think Mr. Marsalis was after
that but chose a more saner life-style) to the general
public, and did well in New Orleans....there's something
to be said for staying in your own back yard, away from
the maddening pace of LA and doing your own thing.
I've said in the last 20 years or so to aspiring studio
musicians "stay home", it stopped happening years ago and
the competition is so rough right now, you'd have to be a
genius player to "make it" for the few recording things
there are here. Some do, but only a few lucky ones. And
there's more to do with politics now too, altho' playing
great still pays off.
Carol Kaye http://www.carolkaye.com/
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