Labi Siffre - Too Late

Truth be told, the only two Labi Siffre songs I knew until fairly recently were the original of 'It Must Be Love' (a hit for Madness over a decade later) and the heartfelt, albeit a bit too saccharine for me 'Something Inside So Strong'. However, listening to Mark Ronson's 'Here Comes The Fuzz' album (his debut before 'Versions' and 'Back To Black' made him a far more household name) a while back, I was struck by the River Cuomo sung 'I Suck' which appeared to be heavily based on a sample I needed to find out more about. A couple of Google clicks later led me to 'Too Late', the first track of Siffre's debut album from 1970 and an excellent slice of R&B-inflected acoustic pop.

Bonus clips: Here's Ronson's 'I Suck' - with a cute 'made for a college course' video...

... and Siffre's original version of 'It Must Be Love'.

Par-T-One - I'm So Crazy

I'm posting this more for the 'Bonus Clips' (see below) then anything else, but this popped into my head after I heard two related things the other day - one was a cover of the entire INXS 'Kick' album by Beck's Record Club project (more info here); the other was a edit of 'Like An Eagle' by Dennis Parker on some mix or other I was listening to.

'I'm So Crazy' is essentially a remix of INXS's 'Just Keep Walking' with a thumping beat and samples of the aforementioned 'Like An Eagle'. I believe Par-T-One were Italian and this example of the short-lived 'Punk House' genre is the only single I'm aware of by them.

Bonus Clips: 'Just Keep Walking' was the second single by INXS originally released in 1980. It's always sounded to me like two completely separate songs jammed together - the undistinguished Simple Minds sounding verse and the much more interesting chorus. It's the latter that was wisely remixed for 'I'm So Crazy'...

... Dennis Parker, an interesting story here - he started out as a porn actor under the name of Wade Nichols, made a disco album for the notorious Casablanca Records in 1979 (of which this is the title track) that was masterminded by the guy behind the Village People (Jacques Morali) and went on to a part in the US soap 'The Edge of Night'. He unfortunately took his own life in 1985 after discovering he had AIDS. This is a disco classic, albeit one with truly atrocious lyrics!

Terry Jacks - Seasons In The Sun

Yet another musical connection from a previous post - this time from Terry Jacks ex-The Poppy Family. Until Westlife massacred it a few years ago, I had always secretly loved 'Seasons In The Sun' ever since I was small and even before I knew about the Jacques Brel connection (see below).

Bonus Clips: 'Seasons In The Sun' has an interesting development story. It started out as 'Le Moribond' by the great Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel, the original French version containing sarcastic lyrics about a dying man's farewell to his friend, his priest, his unfaithful wife and her lover.

... Rod McKuen then provided English lyrics which toned down the sarcasm but still referenced the wife's affair in the final verse. The first English version was recorded by The Kingston Trio...

... after The Poppy Family broke up, Terry & Susan Jacks traveled to California to work on a version of the song with The Beach Boys. That version was never completed and so Terry Jacks re-recorded it for himself and had a worldwide hit.

The Poppy Family - Which Way You Goin' Billy?

Another musical connection from the previous post. Last time, I posted The Poppy Family's cover of 'Different Drum' but here is their biggest hit which got to #1 and #2 in the Canadian and US charts respectively.

Terry & Susan Jacks were married at the time and the band also featured a tabla player (not that you can see him in this clip). After their debut album, The Poppy Family continued as a vehicle for the married couple plus session musicians but never reached similar success outside of their native Canada again. As the marriage foundered, Terry & Susan decided to drop the band name but continued to work with each other for some time after (more on that in the next post). A great compilation CD was released in the mid-90s called 'A Good Thing Lost' - highly recommended.

Bonus Clips: One of The Poppy Family's more psychedelic tracks, 'There's No Blood In Bone'...



... and the later 'Where Evil Grows'.

The Stone Poneys - Different Drum

Musical association time: having posted on Andrew Gold earlier this week brought to mind his association with Linda Ronstadt, who had a hit with this version of the Michael Nesmith-penned 'Different Drum' as part of The Stone Poneys (though it has been covered many times both before and since - more on that later). This is my favourite version, but not the one that first drew me to the song...

Bonus Clips: ... which was the cover by The Lemonheads released in 1990...

... another more recent live version by Susanna Hoffs & Matthew Sweet to plug their cover album from a few years back...

... one more by the Canadian band The Poppy Family featuring Terry Jacks (more on him coming up in a future post)...

... and finally a quick clip by the writer himself from an episode of The Monkees :-) (R.I.P. Mike)

Andrew Gold - Never Let Her Slip Away

I was quite upset to hear Andrew Gold had died last week. Although mostly known for writing the theme song to 2 US sitcoms ('Thank You For Being A Friend' from The Golden Girls and 'The Final Frontier' from Mad About You), he was also an accomplished singer-songwriter having worked with Linda Ronstadt and Art Garfunkel, as well as being half of Wax alongside Graham Gouldman ex-10cc. However, he also released a number of solo albums which spawned a couple of minor hits such as this classic from 1977.

It's amazing what you only find out about people from their obituaries; I never knew that Andrew Gold was the son of Marnie Nixon (who dubbed Natalie Wood in 'West Side Story' and Audrey Hepburn in 'My Fair Lady' amongst others) until I read about it in a tribute piece. R.I.P. Andrew.

Bonus Clips: Here's another great Andrew Gold track, 'Lonely Boy'...

and Wax's 'Building A Bridge to Your Heart'.

The Moody Blues - Ride My See-Saw

The Moody Blues - best known, at least in their post-Denny Laine Mk II formation, for wildly over-the-top prog-rock albums full to the brim with every instrument this side of the kitchen-sink interspersed with some great pop tunes e.g. "Nights In White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon" and this great slice of pop-psych.

The best thing about this performance (from the 60s TV show 'Colour Me Pop', I believe) is the dapper finger-snapping, foot-shuffling Ray Thomas, who looks like he's in the wrong band completely and channeling his best Peter Wyngarde impression! Plus the fact that it starts off with 'Departure', the 1st track off 'In Search of the Lost Chord' which of course is a spoken-word dramatic piece written by the drummer (natch), Graeme Edge (he unfortunately passed away recently so R.I.P. Graeme).

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Bonus Clip: one of my fave tracks from the 60s, a cover of the Bessie Banks original by the Denny Laine Mk I line-up.

The Association - Never My Love

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a certain thing for Bubblegum Pop and its myriad sub-genres (Glam, Soft Pop etc.). However I have yet to write an entry on one of my favourites - Sunshine Pop; basically soft-pop with close harmonies a la The Beach Boys.

The de facto godfather of Sunshine Pop is Curt Boettcher, the songwriter/producer behind The Millennium, The Ballroom and Sagittarius. Boettcher produced the first album by The Association but this later track is my favourite from the six-piece multi-vocalist band.

Bonus clips: 'Never My Love' was the group's 3rd No. 1, the previous being 'Windy' which has been recently parodied in an ad for 7-Up featuring Brad Garrett. Here's a great live performance from 1967...

...'Never My Love' was written by The Addrisi Brothers who released their own discofied version on Buddah Records some ten years later in 1977.

Britney Spears - Womanizer

I have to admit that I completely missed this when it was first released. In fact, I heard it only recently on one of the playlists my wife made when I first bought her a MP3 player. Actually, it's great - and one of the handful of tracks I can actually stand to listen to on said playlist. Also, it's pretty amusing listening to the kids try and sing along with it (and the video has some, um, interesting visuals I guess)!

Bonus tracks: Similarly to 'Umbrella' & 'Crazy', 'Womanizer' has been covered by many other 'hip' artistes. Here's an acoustic take by Lily Allen...

... and a live-in-the-studio take by Franz Ferdinand...

... and finally here's Ellen with the two out of Fall Out Boy that anyone recognizes in one of her 'Bathroom Sessions'.

The Turtles - Elenore

Ah, I love The Turtles. Even though they had a few big hits, they were completely screwed over by their record company and managers (more on that later) and today they are rather under appreciated.

The story behind 'Elenore' is that after hitting big with a couple of pop songs ('Happy Together' and 'She'd Rather Be With Me'), the band wanted to branch out and had recorded a concept album with each track being by a different fictitious group ('The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands'). The record company however pressured the band with coming up with something commercial so they wrote down as many clichés as they could e.g. 'I really think you're groovy', 'Gee, I think you're swell', 'You're my pride & joy etc.' and, voilà, 'Elenore' was born.

Here is a great live version from 1968 with Mark Volman ('Flo') and Howard Kaylan ('Eddie') in fine form vocally and a marvelous performance from Jonny Barbata on drums. After record company pressure, the band split and Flo & Eddie (along with bass player Jim Pons) went on to join Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention for a string of late 60s/early 70s gigs and albums.



Bonus clips: Flo & Eddie explain their managerial & record company woes...



... Flo & Eddie with Zappa and band sing 'She Painted Up Her Face' in a typically incoherent segment from the movie '200 Motels'...



... Another track from 'Battle of the Bands', 'I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're the Royal Macadamia Nuts)' has been sampled numerous times and formed the backbone of a precedent setting legal case brought by the band against De La Soul (along with yet another sampled track 'You Showed Me')

MN8 - I've Got A Little Something For You

"and I'll give you just three guesses to figure out just what it is." Have you guessed yet? Somehow, I doubt it was a raspberry in the ear...

Second tier UK boy band alert. MN8 were the 90's all black UK boy band that Baby Spice's boyfriend was not a member of (that was Damage, trivia fans). This track appeared in the film 'Bad Boys' and was one of Puff Daddy's (or P. Diddy or Diddy Dirty Money or whatever he's calling himself this week) early remixes. However, like a number of their peers, after a couple of more low charting singles the group disappeared without a trace. Ah well...