vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Oct 21, 2010 21:06:35 GMT 1
The Slits"Typical Girls", no. 60, November 1979 "Man Next Door", dnc, June 1980 This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. Now form a band. The instructions from punk fanzine Sideburns, circa 1976. And many did. The Pistols primarily blazed the trail. The Clash and The Damned followed closely. Whereas the Pistols slashed and burned, The Clash developed a political sensitivity and a close relationship with the world of reggae; The Damned followed their gravedigger singer's mock-session with the dark side and developed goth. Problem is, so many others didn't bother with anything so innovative. They were, in the words of the Adverts, one chord wonders. They saw the Pistols; they aped the Pistols. That was not the punk ethos. It was do what you want. If others like it, good. If they don't, better. Few got the ethos as well as The Slits. Practically everyone at the 100 Club that fateful 1976 night ended up in a punk band. The show opener was Siouxsie Sioux reading out The Lord's Prayer with Marco (Ants) Pirroni on bass and Sid Vicious wrecking a bass. Vicious was a hanger-on and associate member of The Flowers Of Romance, a loose aggregation of punks and suchlike who occasionally took to the stage; amongst their musicians were a 14 year old German, Ariane Forster, and Joe Strummer's Spanish girlfriend, Paloma Romero. They had met at a Patti Smith concert - Ari's mum was a former girlfriend of Chris Spedding, the Pistols' first producer, and later Mrs John Lydon - and Strummer encouraged them to make music. They split from the Flowers and recruited a couple of other members. Because they had an idea. They were going to be an all-female punk group. Such a thing was a rarity in the past; the liberating sixties saw very few female groups gain success, the most notable being Goldie And The Gingerbreads and The Luv'd Ones (although Honey Lantree of The Honeycombs had become the first female group instrumentalist to have a number one hit). But punk was not in any way sexist or judgmental. You bring your game, you have a go. The Slits had a go. After some line-up changes, they settled down to the classic foursome, with the founders under classic punk pseudonyms (which helped when signing on...) - Ari Up on vocals, Palmolive on drums, Aussie Viv Albertine on guitar and Tessa Pollitt on bass. And their music was hardly what one would expect from punk. Spiky, sparse, staccato...almost ska. There was no compromise from The Slits. By the time their debut album came out punk's early sear had blanded into the mainstream. But that didn't bother them. They produced an even more extreme sound, and appeared naked on the cover, save for a covering of mud (Palmolive quit in protest, formed The Raincoats and eventually became a born-again Christian). In one of those moments that makes you proud to be British, the single released from the album actually made the charts. For three weeks. But that's not the point - it was given the chance. Needless to say it was their only chart success; their third single was a split 7 inch with Bristolian agit-funkers The Pop Group, who later metamorphed into Pigbag, and given its run of four letter words it was never likely to get airplay. Still, The Slits were not going to compromise for the sake of commerciality, and their second album in 1982 was just as challenging. The band then split, Albertine moving into television production work, Ari guesting with New Age Steppers and the odd bout of solo material, before in 2006 she got back with Pollitt to re-tour under the Slits name. They released a new album in 2009, "Trapped Animal", still uncompromisingly Slits. I never thought I would cry again but the tears have started to come. Ariane Forster, Ari Up, died of cancer yesterday. RIP. Her last work
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Post by vastar iner on Oct 25, 2010 21:39:32 GMT 1
Ralph McTell"Streets Of London", no. 2, December 1974 "Dreams Of You", no. 36, December 1975 Hey, guess who was punting at the Christmas market? Even McTell's first charting album a couple of years before his debut hit came out in November... McTell was a busker, not the first to hit the chart (that would be Don Partridge), well-known on the folk scene from the late 1960s, and had written the busker's favourite "Streets Of London" whilst working the Paris streets. There had already been a Parisian poverty song, the "Goualante De Pauvre Jean", the song of poor John; this had got mis-heard as "pauvre gens" - poor people - and under the name "Poor People Of Paris" became a number one hit for Winifred Atwell And Her "Other" Piano. So McTell moved the setting to London, and left it off his debut album in 1968 because he thought it too depressing. He was persuaded to include it on his follow-up "Spiral Staircase" and it became a huge underground (literally) hit. But unreleased as a single. At 5 minutes, it was considered too long. It was a re-recorded version that broke through, done for an album aimed at the US market and initially released as a single in 1972 in the Netherlands, one of the many countries McTell constantly toured in, where it made the top ten. Warner Brothers commissioned a new recording for a British single, featuring fellow folkie-cum-a-capella band Prelude backing, and it became an enormous Christmas hit, displacing The Wombles* for the spot behind Mud. Anyhoo, McTell was hardly the most obvious of singles artists, so there was no attempt to follow up seriously until the following Christmas. But times had changed, Queen had raised the bar from cod-rockabilly to cod-opera, and McTell pretty much bombed. Another attempt to snatch a hit followed in 1984, when his Skol advert theme "He's A Winner" was released, but it missed the chart entirely. Nevertheless, McTell is well famous amongst people of a certain age for his children's television-ness. He did the sing the theme toon, write the theme toon bit for Tickle On The Tum and Alphabet Zoo. He's never stopped performing and recording, with a new album "Somewhere Down The Road" out about...now. * technically the first group Little Lord Vas ever saw in concert...
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Post by vastar iner on Oct 27, 2010 20:47:39 GMT 1
Incantation"Cacharpaya (Andes Pumpsa Desi)", no. 12, Dec 1982 "Sikuriadas", dnc, Mar 1983 I miss the old charts, when labels would throw anything and see if it stuck, and occasionally struck lucky. One of the less likely acts to appear on Ver Pops, Incantation were in the Rubettes mould, of session musicians who decided to stick together for a while when they had a modicum of success. It started in 1981. The Ballet Rambert were planning on performing dances to the music of Chilean folk group Inti-Intillami, but instead of relying on backing tapes wanted to have live musicians perform. Two of the usual musicians, Mike Taylor and Tony Hinnigan, volunteered to put together a band, and write some fresh songs of their own, and were so taken with the sound of the panpipes they decided to make it a more permanent project. Incantation was an obvious pun on the Peruvian Inca, and as the show was a success they got signed to Beggars Banquet (had to be an indie, didn't it?). Although they were always going to be more of an album band, the traditional (and catchy) "Cacharpaya" was released as a single, more for advertising purposes, and it worked twofold; the parent album made the top ten (and sold a third of a million), the single nearly following. It was their sole single hit, the follow-up not doing much, but Incantation as a group had another couple of album hits, as well as soundtracking the Ennio Morricone-written score for the De Niro film "The Mission". Taylor and Hinnigan separately have been heavily involved in film music, together scoring and performing for films as diverse as Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Far And Away, Willow and Patriot Games, and working separately as session musicians for film scores (Hinnigan reaching number one on wind instruments for Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On And On"). Hinnigan's main role nowadays is as part of the Michael Nyman band; the last Incantation release was "Camera" - a compilation of film scores - in 2006.
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Post by vastar iner on Oct 28, 2010 22:33:37 GMT 1
Marvin Rainwater"Whole Lotta Woman", no. 1, March 1958 "I Dig You Baby", no. 19, June 1958 And yes, that WAS his real name. The fifties, an era when every song sounded the same and was by identikit singers. Well, not quite. You had skiffle, bebop, rock & roll, rockabilly, swing, jive, crooning, chipmunking and balladeering. All in the charts at the same time. Whereas nowadays the charts seem to be of the same genre, that featuring Taio Cruz. You couldn't imagine a Cherokee getting airplay nowadays. Indeed you couldn't imagine anyone not on reality TV getting airplay. Yet Rainwater did; the country-tinged Kansan got his break through writing for Teresa Brewer and then appeared on an early American pop programme, which in 1956 got him a deal with MGM. He became an early crossover star, with his own composition "Gonna Find Me A Bluebird" being both a country and Hot 100 hit in the States. His fourth single, "Whole Lotta Woman", was a middling country hit in the States, but the novelty of a 25% Amerindian singing country hit a chord with the British public and they sent him to number one (after stalling him behind Perry Como for nearly a month). Unfortunately it nearly marked the end of Rainwater as a performer; certainly as a chart contender. Constant performing and touring stressed his vocal chords; he had to take time off and as a result was dropped by MGM. His mainstream career never got going again, but despite a battle with throat cancer Rainwater is still going strong; indeed he performed in London last year, including giving British audiences a glimpse of his most recent material, his last album "Rock Me" coming out in 2002. Still crowd-pleasing at the age of 84. I bet Joe McDingleberry isn't doing that.
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Post by vastar iner on Oct 30, 2010 20:34:02 GMT 1
The Piranhas"Tom Hark", no. 6, August 1980 "Zambezi", no. 17, October 1982 An act that illustrates two sort of contradictory things. Much of this thread has been about quintessential one-hit wonders, for whom doing the same thing again has been sales poison, see for example Morris Minor & The Majors and St Winifred's School Choir (if you have to). So doing something different would be the appropriate way forward, n'est-ce pas? Yet The Piranhas ended up trying something different, failing, and having minor success going back to the original sound. 1977. Punk. Do you own thing. Loads of bands get started. The Brighton scene was probably not as trendy as it later became, but The Piranhas got themselves going with their ska-tinged sardonic sound. Boring Bob Grover on vocals, Johnny Helmer on guitar, electrician Reginald Frederick Hornsbury on bass, art school dropout Zoot Alors (lol) on sax and Dickie Slexia (groan) from that hotbed of rebellion Lewes on drums. They got some early exposure from John Peel, and looked as if they would be one of the many punk and new-wave bands that had a local following and not much more. Indeed they even ended up with an anti-following, as an outfit The Anti-Piranha League bizarrely formed and guerrilla-ed at their gigs. The group was nearly destroyed in a road accident that killed their manager; yet such was their devotion to their craft they struggled on, generating a more and more impressive live reputation. But there was an interested spectator at one of their residency gigs at the Alhambra down the seafront. Pete Waterman. He was artist rep at well-regarded indie label Hansa at the time, and he persuaded the band to sign up. They had recorded their debut album for local label Attrix, which was swiftly pulled before pressing and transferred to Hansa. They had a stroke of luck with the release of their debut. A cover of an instrumental that had been a big hit for Elias And His Zigzag Jive Flutes, which Alors had found in his mum's record collection and shared with the band, with new lyrics written by the world weary Grover, it was released just as Top Of The Pops emerged from a ten-week strike called by the Musicians' Union over rates for the TOTP orchestra. (What orchestra? Shows you the success of that strike.) It was one of the first records played on the return of ver Pops, and struck a chord with the ska-prest casuals of the football grounds at the time. A top ten hit followed. Thing is, they tried to follow it up with one of their own, "proper" songs, to show they were no novelty; the rather excellent "I Don't Want My Body". And people weren't interested. The re-recorded album was a minor success, but otherwise the Piranhas were broken over its back. So Grover reformed the band (including grabbing a school music teacher for keyboards), and repeated the trick. Take a fifties instrumental, add lyrics, and voom. It worked; sort of. Not as big as "Tom Hark" but still a palpable hit. It was never followed up; Helmer went on to become a songwriter with Marillion, of all bands, Grover continued performing on his own and with new band Dates. Just a fortnight ago they got together with Alors (real name Phil Collis, no n, thankfully, now resident in the States where he works as an advertising executive) for a 30th anniversary appearance at the Brighton punk all-dayer gig. Dick Slexia (Richard Adland) became a session drummer and gave up music in the nineties to work as a painter and decorator and Hornsbury went back to the sparks, neither was at the reunion. Their first hit had a longer shelf-life, still being sung at football grounds today, and returning to the top 20 in 2005 by Attila The Stockbroker and an amalgam of Brighton bands (with Grover's blessing) under the name Seagulls Ska to publicize the campaign to get Brighton & Hove Albion a new ground. It worked, eventually.
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Post by Earl Purple on Oct 31, 2010 17:28:57 GMT 1
Sales of singles plummeted during that strike. If you look at the chart of the year, for example, Crying by Don McLean is really lowly placed but had one of the best chart runs of the year, Use It Up And Wear It Out is #20 while If You're Looking For A Way Out is #26 (after the strike) although that peaked at #6 compared to #1.
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Post by vastar iner on Oct 31, 2010 20:07:01 GMT 1
Which shows you just how asinine the industry is. You would think there's a fairly obvious lesson there about sales and publicity, but they wilfully ignore it. Unless you believe that the industry is about sales, rather than control. Which is difficult to believe when you consider this entry. Jane Birkin & Sere Gainsbourg"Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus", no. 1, August 1968 "La Decadanse", dnc, February 1972 See Ricky Valance above. Record label gives up on hit because of a moral outrage. Only this time it was far more culpable. Fontana had promoted "Je T'aime" to number 2 in the charts, and then suddenly had misgivings and gave up on it. Music to the ears of Phil Solomon, the impresario who had already made a splash with Radio Caroline, and who had his own imprint label Major Minor. Which specialized in the more unusual acts - The Dubliners had already top tenned for him with their own, er, erotic classic - and was a subsidiary of Decca. Lesson learned, Solomon rushed out the Major Minor version to take over the Fontana one. Bizarrely the chart compilers considered them separate; with the result that on 4 October 1968 you had the Fontana version plummeting from 2 to 16, and the Major Minor version a new entry at 3. Imagine the Chart Show thread in those circumstances... The song itself took inspiration from a remark from that magnificent trickster Salvador Dali. "Picasso is a Communist, and neither am I." "Picasso est Communiste...moi non plus." The play on expectations being lost on the Anglophone audience. But what the hey, Gainsbourg had been writing since the fifties and knew what would work. He was asked to write a sweet love song by his then-girlfriend Brigitte Bardot, and came up with this; the problem was that the original recording was objected to by Bardot's husband... But Gainsbourg then met English ingenue Jane Birkin, who had been in a couple of trendy films in the mid-sixties and was married to Bond theme writer John Barry; they split, she auditioned for a French film before Gainsbourg; he dumped Bardot for her, and they recorded the song afresh, taking it to the top of the charts. Naturally the Beeb refused to play it, which gave Gun (not that one) organist Paul Mycroft an idea; just copy the music and have a quick hit. He got together some session legends (including Chris Spedding, Herbie Flowers [see Clive Dunn] and, obviously, Clem Cattini) and under the name Sounds Nice retitled the tune "Love At First Sight". The BBC played this instead, and they got a top 20 out of it. Anyhoo, such things mattered not one whit to Major Minor, Birkin or Gainsbourg. They released an album off the back of this but there was no follow-up release - Fontana retained control of the output and embarrassedly sort of ignored it. Only in 1972, when hippydom was out of the way, did they release a soundalike second single by the pair, and the time was long, long passed when it would have been a hit. Gainsbourg continued provoking reactions to the end of his life, through film, song and making sexual advances to Whitney Houston in an interview, Birkin continued more in the acting field, but has made a dozen, mostly French, albums, the latest one being "Enfants D'hiver" two years ago; the pair's daughter Charlotte is also an actress/single and she was in the album charts earlier this year. Meanwhile the song "Je T'aime" has been covered and parodied innumerable times; it gave Judge Dread his second top ten, although Frankie Howerd & June Whitfield's version was less successful.
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 1, 2010 11:01:17 GMT 1
OK. Last one for a week or so, the clue is in the first song... MC Miker "G" & Deejay Sven"Holiday Rap", no. 6, September 1986 "Celebration Rap", dnc, December 1986 It takes a very special talent to make Madonna and Cliff Richard sound worse, but these Dutch DJs managed it. What's more, they spent 5 weeks at number one in Germany. Then again they like the Hoff there. Miker "G" (Lucien Witteveen) turned to breakdance, streetdance and rap in the early eighties at the age of 15. He recorded with unknown Dutch artists such as The Two Invisible and built up something of a solo reputation; in 1986 he met Sven van Veen, the resident DJ at a nightclub in Hilversum, and decided to record a new version of Ms Ciccione's latest smash hit (well, take out the sma). It got picked up by the Dutch record label Dureco, which had had such success locally with Balearic groove that they took a punt on success with this one, and had Ben Liebrand do the oofle dust thing. And Dureco had success beyond its wildest dreams. Number one in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland, and top ten in plenty of other places, including, bizarrely, Canada. Which gives you some idea just how rubbish music was in 1986. Thankfully in Britain one song was enough; the follow-up aimed at the Christmas market did not trouble the compilers. It did however make the top ten in a dozen European countries. The duo toured and recorded over the next couple of years, "G" having a solo album aimed at the more disco-ish market ("I'm A B-Boy"), but by 1990 they had split permanently. "G" had more success as a recording artist, including a solo single "Show M The Bass" which had some Euro success, whereas Sven returned to the turntables, ran a cafe and became a radio DJ on Dutch station Radio Veronica. Where he still remains. "G"'s story is less happy, he meandered through as a producer and performer (with Robin Droost as Toss & Turn), before drug addiction reduced him to homeless status. He was picked up by Dutch rappers Extince to guest on "5%" in 2007 and the renewed attention got him a deal for another solo album, so things perhaps looking a bit more up...
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 13, 2010 13:06:13 GMT 1
Rock Family Trees: The Young Ones EditionOK. So you're all familiar with the following number one hit. The first, and best, Comic Relief single. Cliff Richard & The Young Ones. It does not count for this listing as they were the purest of one hit wonders; one release, zip all else. But it's a bit more complicated than that. Various incarnations and/or members of the Young Ones DO count...sort of. The Young Ones - Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan - emerged out of The Comic Strip; a resident comedic rep company originally based at the Comedy Store, centered around the Mayall/Edmondson, Planer/Peter Richardson and French/Saunders duos. They got their big break thanks to Channel Four; on the very first evening of broadcast, they produced the iconic episode Five Go Mad In Dorset, the first in a series of "The Comic Strip Presents..." The set was so successful that BBC2 negotiated with the troupe for a similarly mental sitcom before a live audience. Peter Richardson, the creative control behind much of the Comic Strip work, fell out with producer Paul Jackson and his place was replaced by Ryan, an actor rather than a comedian, and The Young Ones was born. In order to increase its budget, The Young Ones was classified as entertainment rather than comedy; this was achieved by having bands guesting every week so the show wasn't a straight sitcom. And with the involvement of the great and good of the music industry it wasn't long before the inevitable crossover... neil"Hole In My Shoe", no. 2, July 1984 "My White Bicycle", dnc, December 1984 neil pye, Scumbag University's resident hippie, was portrayed by Nigel Planer; his cover of the Traffic song was such a surprise success that he went on to record an entire album - neil's heavy concept album - featuring such big names as Dave Stewart (the Hatfield & The North one) (and, of course, Stewart's Hatfield collaborator Barbara Gaskin). Rather bizarrely it got a push from MTV in the United States, including actual proper adverts, but otherwise was not commercially successful. Planer took the act on tour, including an Edinburgh Fringe residency, but that apart neil's chart career - barring the Young Ones' incarnation, of course - remained strictly a one-off. But the Young Ones themselves had other hits... Bad News"Bohemian Rhapsody", no. 44, September 1987 "Cashing In On Christmas", dnc, December 1987 Vim, Den, Spider and Colin. A poor man's Spinal Tap. Bad News was born in 1983 for the "Bad News On Tour" Comic Strip special, a rockumentary following the hapless band as they tried to make their way in the rock world. A victim of bad timing; Bad News' biopic was being made at the same time as Spinal Tap, and the latter's theatrical release overshadowed a half-hour special on 4, so Bad News never managed to get the release that the programme deserved. It took a while for a follow-up to occur, the "More Bad News" special, which centred around the reunion of the broken-up band; as part of the special they got a gig at the Donington Monsters of Rock Festival, which formed the climax of the film - the crowd invading the stage when Vim (Edmondson) collapsed to his knees and announced "I am Jimi Hendrix, you must all worship me" and they did not. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was produced off the back of that, Brian May as song producer, and was probably too bad to be successful; the Christmas follow-up was more musically accomplished, so to speak, but too poor a song. You may notice incidentally that Spider Webb on drums is Peter Richardson, taking his rightful place in the "original" Young Ones. Richardson carried the Comic Strip banner on as most of the original collaborators achieved their success on their own terms; he took it to BBC2 and as more new stars joined he came up with something a little different. Glam Metal Detectives, a sort of proto-Fast Show, with such characters as Betty And Maisie, Bloodsport Channel and Colin Corleone, as well as the titular crime-solving, world-touring band who were number one wherever they went. They managed one chart single - the theme "Everybody Up!", produced by Lol Creme of 10cc and featuring Jeff Beck on guitar (and female vocals provided by Doon McKichan and Sara Stockbridge, the latter being the link between the Sex Pistols and Gonch Gardner, as she worked with Vivienne Westwood and appeared in Grange Hill), but no more, so they miss out. There is however one remaining Young One...
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 14, 2010 13:23:16 GMT 1
Alexei Sayle"Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?", no. 15, February 1984 "Didn't You Kill My Brother?", dnc, March 1988 Sayle was, pace John Cooper Clarke, the most punk comedian to emerge out of the late seventies scene. Sayle got his comedy break as being the MC at the Comedy Store, the perfect environment for him, as his routines were more often surrealistic rants at the state of things - more antagonism towards the audience a la Andy Kaufman than satire a la Bill Hicks. It got him spotted for the Tiswas (see the Four Bucketeers) sequel O.T.T. via the Comic Strip; when the Strip took off, Sayle quit O.T.T. and eventually became the forgotten member of The Young Ones (the landlord Mr Balowski). His character did not integrate with the others - reminiscent of his work at the Comedy Store/Comic Strip, he basically would rant away unrelated to the remainder of the programme for a couple of minutes. It meant he missed out on a number one single... His first single was released in 1982, after the O.T.T. appearances, but was not a hit; it was reissued in 1984 after The Young Ones had raised his profile. Although it spawned a hit album, Island declined to issue a follow-up single, and Sayle's second single had to wait until The Comic Strip returned to television; the theme to one of their films, which featured Sayle playing twin brothers, one a villain, one less so. In the late 80s Sayle went on to have his own TV series, "Alexei Sayle's Stuff", featuring Angus Deayton and Mark "You Ent Seen Me, Roight?" Williams inter alia as part of the rep cast, and has been in demand ever since. His childhood memoirs are heading for bargain bins near you since. Oddly, Sayle and neil were both nominated for a Brit award - Best Comedy Single - in 1985. An award that has not been made since. The three other nominees include two who come soooo close to making this theme; Roland Rat Superstar's "Rat Rapping", which had two charting follow-ups, "No. 1 Rat Fan" peaking at 72 and just excluding the Superstar from the list, and Mel Brooks' "To Be Or Not To Be", whose pre-quel ( "It's Good To Be The King"), not se-quel, missed the chart. The third nominee however counts. Albeit somewhat trivially. Weird Al Yankovic"Eat It", no. 36, April 1984 "Smells Like Nirvana", no. 58, June 1992 Ah, that famous American sense of humour. Gained exposure thanks to Dr Demento, a DJ with a penchant for playing the kind of song that makes this thread, when he parodied the abysmal "My Sharona" as "My Bologna". See what he did there? Anyway, the United States - the nation that bought the rights to remake Fawlty Towers and wrote out Basil Fawlty - was, and is, so humour starved (where else could Adam Sandler make a living?), that it has taken "Weird Al" - and ALWAYS beware people who call themselves "weird", it's a bit Timmy Mallett - to its heart. He even had a top ten single a couple of years back with "White And Nerdy". 13th album is due out soon; 12th album "Straight Outta Lynwood" (hey, it was only mildly amusing when Morris Minor did such things. 20 years before) made the top ten... Incidentally, the winner was neil. One wonders whether this was a Steps award - create something to give an award to someone who needs the publicity...
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 15, 2010 22:44:09 GMT 1
The Singing Nun"Dominique", no. 7, December 1963 "Alleluia", dnc, December 1964 Given that we have nuns in the album chart this week, it's appropriate to have a look at one of music's saddest stories, where global success turned into tragedy. In 1959, a twentysomething girl called Jeanne Deckers entered the Fichermont Convent of the Dominican Order in Waterloo (the Belgian one) and took the name Sister Luc-Gabrielle. It was not an anchorite nunnery, and the sisters produced various goods for sale to the general public. Sister Luc-Gabrielle's contribution was her music; she could sing and play guitar, and, in common with churches, monasteries and every sort of religious institution the world over, the convent decided to have her record something for sale. Unlike the other small-scale religious sales, however, executives at the Benelux-based Phillips caught wind of the nun with the soft voice and guitar, and signed her up, all royalties to the convent. She recorded her own song "Dominique", in honour of her order's patron, as a single, and it was released in late 1963. One tragedy led to another; the assassination of JFK led to American radio stations turning to religious and moral themes and Sister Smile, Soeur Sourire, the Singing Nun, fit the profile perfectly. On 7 December 1963 it reached number one in the States; it stayed there for the rest of the year. The only Belgian number one in the US. An album was successful Stateside and Deckers was enticed out of the convent for a tour, and even to work on a biopic (starring fellow number one hitmaker Debbie Reynolds), but no follow-up single could make headway as Beatlemania took over. And worse, much worse, was to follow. After a split with Phillips, Soeur Sourire had to change her nom de disque to Luc Dominique as Phillips retained the rights to her name; she became increasingly critical of the hardline Catholic approach to birth control and eventually left the convent. She turned to making music for children, with ever diminishing returns, and, with her partner, fellow ex-nun Annie Pecher, opened a school for autistic children. Their lives continued quietly until the bombshell. From the charming fellow known as the taxman. In the late seventies the Belgian authorities demanded $60,000 in back taxes from the success of "Dominique" a decade and a half before. Notwithstanding all royalties had gone to the convent. But she had no proof 15 years on. Desperate for cash, she ended up re-recording "Dominique" in - Lord help us - a disco version and it bombed. The next anyone heard of The Singing Nun was in 1985. She and Pecher were found dead in their flat. They had committed suicide, a note blaming their financial difficulties and asking for forgiveness. She had just turned 51. The ultimate tragedy? The next day $300,000 of unpaid royalties were transferred into her bank account by the Belgian equivalent of the BPI...
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 18, 2010 22:13:24 GMT 1
Farley "Jackmaster" Funk"Love Can't Turn Around", no. 10, August 1986 "As Always", no. 49, February 1989 OK, going old school for this one. Farley Keith Williams is a Chicago DJ who got his start in 1981 as a member of the Hot Mix 5 DJ crew on an underground Chicago radio station; at the time he was known as Farley Funkin' Keith. It was after disco had died on its apex and dance music was looking for a new set of sounds. The Hot Mix 5 were in on the ground floor of something a little bit different, using the derided disco material as an underpin to synthy Eurobeat sounds, rather than the more scratched work coming from New York; the real originator of this sound was Frankie Knuckles, the resident DJ of The Warehouse club in Chicago, hence it being termed house music. Funk's main contribution was the new dance craze of jacking - one of his early singles was "Jack The Bass" - and he therefore adopted the name of Jackmaster. His flatmate at the time, Steve Hurley, was apparently going to take the name, so ended up calling himself JM Silk instead. Funk was the first to break through into the mainstream, with one of Hurley's songs. "I Can't Turn Around" was originally a hit for Isaac Hayes and Hurley housed it up for release purposes. Funk "borrowed" the track for his own purposes, as Hurley's version had not gained an international release; with rewritten lyrics, an even more houseified backing and the mountainous presence of opera-trained ex-choirboy Darryl Pandy, and amidst the frenzy of labels seeking their own house stars London Records got the rights and took it into the UK, where it became a much greater mainstream success than it had ever achieved in the US. Funk never managed to follow this up adequately under his own name; he was the motive factor behind Housemaster Boyz, which provided him with another top ten hit, but otherwise Funk - now generally performing under the name Farley Keith - is not so interested in releasing records, more in the live scene. Not in Chicago; he has gone global and pops up all over the world from time to time, playing both old school house and promoting gospel music. Of course his former flatmate Steve Hurley had the most undeserved number one hit of all time, with "Jack Your Body", which was fiddled to the top spot despite breaking chart rules. Hurley would be a candidate for this thread, other than he didn't have any other British releases under that name, and had already hit the chart under his JM Silk name - with his "Love Can't Turn Around" prequel...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 21, 2010 12:08:01 GMT 1
Anton Karas"The Third Man Theme", would have been a no. 1, October 1949 "The Cafe Mozart Waltz", dnc, 1955 Cheating a bit with this one. Well, a lot. But it's worth including. In 1999, The Third Man was voted by the British Film Institute as the best British film of all time; indeed it is probably one of the best films of all time period. A Graham Greene noir about illicit pharma smuggling and fiddling in post-war Vienna, it was incredibly dark, even for the time, and took two bold steps. One, director Carol Reed agreed to pay Orson Welles $100,000 to appear in it; you can multiply by ten for today's figures, in the Hollywood era of the time it was the biggest figure ever paid for a starring role. Two, Welles did not even appear until the film was nearly over... The problems of filming in post-war Vienna were manifold; Vienna stubbornly refused to conform to the geographical requirements of the shooting, and various intriguing bits of camera trickery were used to disguise the true locations. Welles would not run into the "sewer" (really a culverted canal) at the close of the film, considering it beneath his dignity, so they had to find a somewhat husky gentleman in a city suffering from rationing and near-famine (they got a butcher's brother in to act as body double). But one of the biggest problems was the soundtrack. Conventionally films required great, sweeping orchestration, big lush quasi-classical themes. Think for example of Welles' other masterwork Citizen Kane. But Reed thought it would be TOO expansive for a film about a dirty and murderous trade. It was while scouting out locations with the actor Trevor Howard that he dined one night in a forgotten cafe. There was entertainment that night, a veteran of the cafe scene; Anton Karas, who started learning how to play the zither as a 12 year old, having found one while exploring in an attic. Karas had been playing professionally since he turned 17, and so had 28 years' experience touring the Viennese cafes and patisseries. Reed and Howard fell in love with the sound. The soundtrack was born. Reed invited Karas to London to work on the film; he spent 12 homesick weeks there composing and recording the score - after a studio fire it had to be re-recorded - and when the film was released in September 1949 it proved a sensation. Best film at Cannes, best film at the BAFTAs, and the soundtrack was in huge demand. There were no singles charts then, but it would certainly have been a number one hit, probably at the top for a record-busting number of weeks; a third of a million sales of the Decca shellac within a month and the sheet music was still selling well in March 1950. As it faded in Britain, it soared in the States. After a stuttering start - in and out of the charts twice - it finally caught fire, perhaps helped by a frankly woeful competing cover from Guy Lombardo And His Royal Canadians - and on 29 April 1950 it hit the top of the Best Seller listings. Where it stayed for 11 weeks; for seven of those weeks Lombardo was lodged behind. The biggest one-hit wonder for nearly 50 years. Karas toured his sound briefly, including performing for His Majesty (allegedly at Princess Margaret's insistence) and the Pope, but he was a Viennese born and bred, and did not enjoy the attention. He quietly went back to his zithering and most of his subsequent releases were low-key albums when that form became popular. He could buy his own cafe with the proceeds from the sales, the Weinschenke Zum Dritten Mann, bought out in 1965 by the Austrian equivalent of Wetherspoons and Karas, nearly 60, retired. He did return for the odd one-off perfomance and died in 1985, aged 78. He never really had a follow-up single. The closest was in 1955, when Decca put together four tracks from the soundtrack as an EP, but it did not chart. The Cafe Mozart Waltz was one of the tracks, and an indication of how the camera trickery in the film worked; although the exterior shot was of the Cafe Mozart, the view down the street was one from three streets away...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 23, 2010 22:27:36 GMT 1
"So then, Vas," as nearly one of you has asked me, "if Anton Karas was the biggest one-hit wonder in 50 years, who broke his record?" Well, I'm glad you almost asked. Los Del Rio"Macarena", no. 2, June 1996 "Christmas Macarena", dnc, December 1986 It was one of the most surprising hits of all time. Antonio Romero (with the greyer hair) and Rafael Ruiz had formed a duo in Seville in the early 1960s and named themselves for the river flowing through their neighbourhood. They specialized in sevillanas, the light, frothy guitar-based folk from their area; Macarena is a district in Seville after which their big hit was named. By the early 1990s they had recorded thirty albums, but were practically unknown outside the Hispanophone world. That would soon change... They wrote the song that would be their global success in 1992. It was almost improvised; the duo were performing in Venezuela for the industrialist Gustavo Cisneros, and Romero was so taken with a supporting dancer that he came up with the chorus there and then; at the time the name was "Magdalena", with vaguely whorish overtones, so it was eventually changed to "Macarena". Although was Romero influenced by a 1960s Mexican hit "Perro Lanudo"? Probably not, just coincidence, but there is a vague similarity... The original version was released in 1993, and became a bit of a success in Spain and Mexico, but otherwise was ignored. But it was included on a number of compilations, from where it got taken up by a politician in Puerto Rico, which brought it to an American audience. In particular amongst the Latino community in Miami. And in particular in particular the Bayside Boys, a production duo who ran their own small label, and who were commissioned by BMG to sprinkle some oofle dust on it. And with the addition of an uncredited (at her request) vocalist putting some English spin on it, and a dance choreographed by Venezuelan instructor Mia Frye, it became a success beyond anyone's wildest dreams. 14 weeks at number one in the States, and a chart-topper in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the Eurochart. It even got chipmunked, although why enough people thought the song wasn't annoying enough when not sung in helium voices to buy sufficient copies to put it to number 65 is mystifying. One country where it missed out on the top spot was, of course, the UK, thanks to, er, the Spice Girls - and perhaps also to a soundalike cover from Los Del Mar that took a few sales away. The Christmas follow-up was surprisingly successful in Australia, reaching the top five, but bombed in most of the rest of the world, and Los Del Rio went back to their sevillanas. They are still together, and have recently signed a deal with IMC, and are working with Jon "Just Another Day" Secada on yet another version of "Macarena", with vocals to be provided from an X Factoresque competition winner.
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 25, 2010 23:59:10 GMT 1
Slight cheat again, but with good reason. Sandy Denny"Si Tu Dois Partir", no. 21, July 1969 "White Dress", dnc, March 1975 In 1968, Fairport Convention were a fairly conventional band covering American West Coast new releases. Then Sandy Denny joined. By the time she left in 1970, they had become the originators of English folk-rock. It's cliched to say that someone is a unique talent, but Sandy Denny goes beyond that. In 1968, after original singer Judy Dyble left, Fairport Convention auditioned for a new vocalist. Sandy Denny, a former trainee nurse who had been performing for a while, turned up. It rapidly turned into Fairport Convention auditioning for her. She got the job and transformed the band, injecting her own songwriting into the standard FC backdrop. In a 12 month period FC put out three albums that defined a whole genre. Starting with covers, going through Denny's own compositions and finishing with old English folk standards rearranged for the dying sixties. But as FC wanted to concentrate more on the latter, Denny, wanting to develop her own songwriting, left. She formed a new band - Fotheringay, named after one of her own FC songs - and after one well-regarded album the band sort of split during the second, as half of them went on to join the fluctuating FC lineup and Denny decided to record solo. Her reputation was by now at its height, although it was not reflected in the singles charts, as her only appearance in them had been a not-too-serious FC cover of a Manfred Mann hit and the FC follow-ups, Fotheringay one-off single and her own solo material all missed the chart. In fact, that Frenchified cover was Denny's only singles chart hit... But why would Led Zeppelin care about singles success? They were so taken with Denny that she was invited to appear on the Four Symbols album, and even given her own symbol (vaguely reminiscent of the MOT sign), duetting with Robert Plant on "The Battle Of Evermore". I'm not a Led-ologist but I am not aware of anyone else ever being allowed to co-vocalize on a Zep album. Denny ploughed her own furrow, her debut solo album "The North Star Grassman And The Ravens" reaching the top forty, scandalously her only solo album to hit the charts, and, as her solo albums featured work from FC members, and her husband Trevor Lucas was now part of the fluid FC line-up, it made sense for her to rejoin. She appeared on a live album, and on "Rising For The Moon", the album that produced her last FC-fronting single listed above. It spent the week of 12 July 1975 at number 52; it was the last chart appearance for Sandy Denny. Her reunion with FC did not last long; her songwriting had progressed beyond FC's more staid fare, even though she had provided three-quarters of the songs for "Rising For The Moon". Following an extensive world tour Denny quit again to work with Lucas on her final solo album, "Rendezvous", which wasn't released until she was pregnant, ensuring that she could not tour to support it and cementing its chart failure. She finally got to tour late in 1977 after giving birth to daughter Georgia. Her closing concert at the Royalty Theatre in November 1977 was recorded for subsequent release. There was a problem with the recording of a guitar, so it was shelved. There would be a next concert, surely? No. It was Sandy Denny's last concert. In March 1978 she fell down stairs while on holiday. She carried on regardless. Then a month later she collapsed. She was taken to hospital but on 21 April 1978 she died. Haemorrhage. She was just 31. This week, a retrospective of Denny's recording life has been released. In her decade-long career, Denny had enough output to fill 19 - nineteen - CDs. If you have a hundred and fifty quid to spare, it would be the perfect present...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Nov 30, 2010 22:43:21 GMT 1
OK. Last one on this theme for a while, new one starts tomorrow. Telly Savalas"If", no. 1, February 1975 "You've Lost That Loving Feeling", no. 47, May 1975 Eat your heart out Shatner. "The Transformed Man" with its bizarre mix of spoken word declamation of Shakespeare and Dylan (Bob, not Thomas) has been hailed as the worst album ever made. So bad, it's good. But it was not a commercial success. In the dreary beige seventies, its time had come. Only it was not Shatner who had the hit; it was someone else who was the centre of a television hit of the time. Aristoteles Savalas, known for playing the lollipop-sucking "Who loves ya baby?" cop Kojak. Savalas' real life was more interesting than his fictional alter ego, he was brought up in a Greek-speaking environment and had to learn English at school, yet was bright enough to gain an Ivy League degree in psychology (which later came in to good use; Savalas finished in the top thirty in the World Series of Poker in 1992). His mahogany speaking voice was perfect for the radio and he served in World War 2 as a radio host with the American forces in Europe. He would probably have continued as a genial radio and television host, moving into production work (he had a steady gig producing ABC's Wide World Of Sports), had it not been for his side career as a bit part actor. Burt Lancaster got on famously with him and brought him in to bigger and better films, culminating in an Oscar nomination for "The Birdman Of Alcatraz" in the Best Supporting category. He had hair then. He shaved it off to be Pontius Pilate in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and never grew it back. It added a layer of menace to his characterizations, yet he is best known as detective Theo Kojak, a character he portrayed in a TV movie that became such an immediate hit with the audience that he was spun off into his own series. The lollipop gimmick came about as something for Savalas to chew on instead of a cigarette; Savalas was a heavy smoker - see the video for "If" - and he asked for a tootsie pop he had seen in an extra's shirt pocket to keep him busy. The quirk took off and made the series into one that continued for over a hundred episodes and half-a-dozen TV movies. Savalas died in 1994, of cancer of the bladder. Oh, his chart career? Not much to say about that, in the seventies the way to make money from TV series was to make records, as videos had not been invented, and Savalas' speaking voice was well suited to voiceovers (as Birmingham put to good use) so getting him to speak through cover versions seemed a good idea at the time; Savalas himself is reported to have made it because "someone asked me to do it" rather than out of any musical convictions. It was certainly successful, the album reached the top twenty, and the lead single number one. More successful than most sleb LPs. Savalas' musical career continued into the early eighties - with a bit more singing - and he had a big Eurohit with "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend", a Swiss number one in 1980. Otherwise, in Britain, the novelty wore off desperately quickly.
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Post by Shireblogger on Dec 1, 2010 17:50:24 GMT 1
Brilliant thread vas, and a fascinating read throughout.
Some great selections in there. I've always loved Anton K, and the sad Sandy Denny story was due a re-telling.
Thank you. Looking forward to the next in this series.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 1, 2010 17:57:36 GMT 1
Thanks Mr S. The only problem with a lot of the 2 hit wonders is that their stories are very similar; promotion for first hit, second gets less attention, abandoned by the mainstream, continue without commercial success. There's not much difference between Judy Boucher, Los Bravos and Donna Lewis, for example. New theme coming up interphrastically...
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Post by blondini on Jul 20, 2011 0:08:49 GMT 1
Worse, they weren't even allowed to play on their singles. Lead singer James Ure turned up to the studio to lay down his vocals, and found to his surprise that the backing tracks had already been made. Slik were only there to mime someone else's work, and pass muster for the live shows and TOTP. Shame. Are you writing all this from memory or a source? I can't find this info anywhere. Not on Wiki or Midge sites. So they never played on their records? It sounds like Midge singing. Surely this would have been revealed and rectified in all listings on places that reference the group? RE: The Photos record company "hyping" their album: they have this to say on the recent deluxe reissue sleevenotes of said album (which i bought recently): "We were told that 50 cameras had been given away [in selected record shops]. Not that many really, but their existence managed to discredit the [album]. It also had a free record with it "The Blackmail Tapes" [early demos] and as a really good live band we had toured constantly to promote it. These were the real reasons we had a top five album and not because of some stupid plastic cameras!" Steve Eagles, guitarist Fantastic thread, amazing detail - a lot i knew and a few i didn't. Amazing all those Grange Hill flops! Then there was Byker Grove, of course.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 20, 2011 7:29:30 GMT 1
The source for the Slik thing is Midge's autobiography "If I Was". He said being number 1 with someone else's work was about the most depressing thing in his life. Has to be said, it was common practice at the time. And for years before. The Beach Boys' main contribution to "Pet Sounds" for example was the vocals, the instrumentation was largely done by the Wrecking Crew (the LA session musicians who performed the Wall of Sound, including Hal Blaine - who has had more US number ones than anyone - and Carol Kaye). It was largely to save time and maximise income, to go back to the "Pet Sounds" example, when it was being laid down the Beach Boys (minus Brian Wilson) were touring. Get a bunch of people who know how to record in the studio rather than having to teach a new act how to do it. It's definitely Slik vocals, though, that was the easiest thing to record, and the group had to be able to play for touring and TOTP purposes (you had the odd thing that, due to Musicians Union rules, anyone appearing on the Pops had to play live in a rehearsal to show they could be performers, but then mime on the show itself). And as for Byker Grove? Obviously Antandec are depressingly well-known (I know a little talent can go a long way, but none whatsoever? Jeeeeeeeeeez), and Point Break featured two Grovers, but who remembers Byker Grooove!? They were meant to be called Changle as a mash-up of their character names (Charlie, Angel and Leah), but I assume licensing issues from the Beeb were sorted out in time to name-check the programme. Has a shouty sub-Shampoo vibe to it...when Vicky Taylor left, Donna Air (yes, that one) and Jayni Hoy ended up forming Crush, who had a couple of minor hits (and incongruously "Jellyhead" made the US charts). And just looking at the latter video...how much does Jayni look like a hotter Billie Piper? Wow.
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