As we're in the '70s, I wonder if anybody else had a pair of these, or was reading this back then;








 

arabchanter wrote:

As we're in the '70s, I wonder if anybody else had a pair of these, or was reading this back then;








 

Still have a pile of these Richard Allen books in a box somewhere
 

Beardy23 wrote:

arabchanter wrote:

As we're in the '70s, I wonder if anybody else had a pair of these, or was reading this back then;








 

Still have a pile of these Richard Allen books in a box somewhere
 

No' that you would want to get shot of them, but they're going for £25 to £50 for a first edition on e-bay, so fir your 2 half crowns (fev bob) it's now worth daft money, but I widnay sell, I'm sure I've got the full set up in the old mans loft, and if he knew they'd be gone the morra, so mums the word, you really canny put a price on nostalgia.
 

DAY 237.
Johm Prine.......................................John Prine   (1971)










A bit too country for my liking, but the boy knew how to write lyrics, another one who was "the new Dylan" of which they were ten a penny back in the '70's.


Lyrically very clever and succinct, and the stand out and only track I would probably want to listen to again was "Sam Stone" although sad and morose, it was chillingly memorable, and very thought provoking.


I wont be buying this album as it was just another country album of which there has been a plenty, and this one I really don't rate much.



Bits & Bobs;


The country/folk singer-songwriter was born in Maywood, Illinois, where he began writing songs and playing the guitar at age 14.


 
Songwriting was a hobby for Prine, who was working as a mailman and only playing gigs to have fun and impress the ladies. But he caught Kris Kristofferson's eye instead. The singer recalls his first impression of Prine at a Chicago performance: "He's 24 years old and he writes like he's 220."


Prine was drafted into the Army and served in Germany for two years during the Vietnam War.


 
Songs like "Sam Stone," about a drug-addicted war veteran, came out of Prine's military experience, but also gave people the false impression that he was a protest singer. "A lot of people when I started out thought I was singing protest songs, only because I was singing about social issues, but it just so happened that was what was going on," said Prine. "At the time, things around were very political. It's not that I was trying to be political – but that was what people were talking about and that's what the songs were about. It turned me off when people labeled me a protest singer. As a matter of fact I thought there were very human things which people could relate to regardless of how they felt politically – I had a feller from the Young Conservatives Party [sic] come up to me after a show (this was one of the nicest compliments I ever got) – he said 'I really wish you were on our side.' I said 'I am, I am!' He didn't understand. He missed the whole show!"


 
On songwriting: "A lot of stuff has come out of just writing a couple of pages and rambling on, going from one mood right into another. Then I put it away and if I wait long enough I pull it back out and the good lines stay there and the others just fall right off the page. You can't tell the good lines from the bad lines right at first sometimes - it's a matter of editing."


 
Bob Dylan has called Prine one of his favourite songwriters.


 
He was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer in 1998 and underwent neck surgery that added a rough edge to his voice.


 
He was a good friend of the late singer-songwriter Steve Goodman, whom he met playing open mics in Chicago early in his career. Goodman would contribute guitar and backing vocals to many of Prine's albums.



"Illegal Smile"


"I have to confess, the song was not about smokin' dope," the folk singer-songwriter told Performing Songwriter of the opening track from his debut album. "It was more about how, ever since I was a child, I had this view of the world where I can find myself smiling at stuff nobody else was smiling at. But it was such a good anthem for dope smokers that I didn't want to stop every time I played it and make a disclaimer."




"When I first started singing it I went on this underground TV program, and the only stage set they had was two chairs and this fake marijuana plant. I came on and sang 'Illegal Smile,' and they kept having the camera pan in, real psychedelic-like, on the plant. On top of that, I got fine by the musician's union for not taking any money to do the show."


 
This was used in Ron Mann's 2000 documentary Grass, about the history of marijuana in the US.




"Spanish Pipedream"


This was written and originally released by John Prine on his self-titled debut album. John Denver recorded a famous cover version on his 1971 album, Aerie.




The song is about a soldier who meets a topless dancer who tells him it is good to live simply: "Blow up your TV, throw away your paper, go to the country, build you a home." They both end up living by that advice.


 
"Originally, the chorus wasn’t about blowing up your TV," Prine told Performing Songwriter. "It was something about the girls forgetting to take the pill, but sunk pretty low after that first great verse. I sounded like Loretta Lynn singing about 'the pill.' Then I got the line 'blow up your TV.' I used to keep a small bowl of real fine pebbles that I picked up on my mail route, and if somebody said something really stupid on TV I’d throw some at the screen."

 

"Hello In There"


Folk singer-songwriter John Prine explains in a Performing Songwriter interview how this track was sparked from a John Lennon tune and evolved into a poignant song about growing old:




"I heard the John Lennon song 'Across The Universe' and he had a lot of reverb on his voice. I was thinking about hollering into a hollow log, trying to get through to somebody - 'Hello in there.' That was the beginning thought, then it went to old people




I've always had an affinity for old people. I used to help a buddy with his newspaper route, and I delivered to a Baptist old peoples home where we’d have to go room-to-room. And some of the patients would kind of pretend that you were a grandchild or nephew that had come to visit, instead of the guy delivering papers. That always stuck in my head.




It was all that stuff together, along with that pretty melody. I don’t think I’ve done a show without singing 'Hello in There.' Nothing in it wears on me."


 
Prine on choosing the name Loretta for the song's aging wife (Collier Books, 1975): "The names mean a lot. You know, like Loretta in 'Hello In There.' I wanted to pick a name that could be an old person's name, but I didn't want it to stick out so much. People go through phases one year where a lot of them will name their kids the same... and I was just thinking that it was very possible that the kind of person I had in mind could be called Loretta. And it's not so strange that it puts her in a complete time period."




As for the name of old factory friend Rudy, Prine explains: "We used to live in this three-room flat and across the street there was this dog who would never come in and the dog's name was Rudy. And the lady used to come out at five o'clock every night and go 'Ru-dee! Ru-dee!' And I was sitting there writing and suddenly I go 'Rudy! Yeah! I got that.'"



"Sam Stone"


"Sam Stone" is about a drug-addicted war veteran, presumably from the Vietnam War although it's not explicitly mentioned, who dies of an overdose. Prine was drafted into the Army during the conflict in the late '60s and was inspired by his fellow soldiers to write the song.




"There's no one person who was the basis for Sam Stone, more like three or four people; like a couple of my buddies who came back from Vietnam and some of the guys I served with in the Army," he told Performing Songwriter. "At that time, all the other Vietnam songs were basic protest songs, made up to slap each other on the back like "Yeah, this is the right cause." I don't remember any other songs that talked about the soldiers at all."




"I came up with the chorus first and decided I really liked the part about the 'hole in daddy's arm.' I had this picture in my mind of a little girl, like Little Orphan Annie, shaking her head back and forth while a rainbow of money goes into her dad's arm. I think I invented the character of Sam Stone as a storyline just to get around to that chorus."


 
Johnny Cash covered this during his 1987 appearance on the Austin City Limits TV show, which was recorded for his album Live From Austin, TX.




"Paradise"


Prine wrote this track after his father sent him a newspaper clipping about a quaint town in Kentucky called Paradise, where the singer had spent summers with his grandparents as a teen, that was bought by a coal mining company.




"Then the bulldozers came in and wiped it all off the map," Prine recalled to Performing Songwriter. "When I recorded the song, I brought a tape of the record home to my dad; I had to borrow a reel-to-reel machine to play it for him. When the song came on, he went into the next room and sat in the dark while it was on. I asked him why, and he said he wanted to pretend it was on the jukebox."


 
Prine re-recorded this for his 1986 album, German Afternoons.


 
John Denver covered this for his 1972 album, Rocky Mountain High. It's also been covered by Jackie DeShannon, The Everly Brothers, Lynn Anderson, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, and John Fogerty.



 
Johnny Cash recorded his version for his 1981 TV movie The Pride of Jesse Hallam.



 
Prine's version played over the end credits of the 1997 action flick Fire Down Below, starring Steven Seagal.



 
 

Last edited by arabchanter (07/4/2018 9:06 am)

DAY 237.
Harry Nilsson........................Nilsson Schmilsson   (1971)












So picture the scene, Saturday morning killing a bit of time before the match, you're in Cathie McCabe's flicking through the albums when "Hello, a boy in his dressing goon" and on further inspection, it looks like he's pushed the boat oot, no' any of your common or garden polyester for oor Harry, no,no,no, looks like he's only gone and got himself a corduroy number.


Now I'm intrigued, better have a look at the tracklist, fuck me, ken something I must have stood in shite the day, it's only got "Without You" on it, how could one bloke be so lucky, I really ought to get myself doon to Shore Terrace and and get ripped in aboot them one armed bandits.


Sorry, the vodka's got me rambling again, if nothing else this book has definitely put me straight on a few things, like if anyone had said "who wrote Without You" I would have confidently said Harry Nilsson, wrong, it was written by Badfinger who funnily enough's biggest hit "If You Want It" was written by Paul McCartney, which I also didn't know, also two of Badfinger hung themselves,Pete Ham couldn’t take anymore. He was depressed and putting cigarettes out on his arms. The 27 year-old rock star saw no way out. He’d been on the treadmill of fame for six years and he didn’t have a penny to show for it. As bleak as it may have looked, he did have a daughter on the way. Tragically, though, that wasn’t enough to sustain him. On April 23, 1975, he hung himself in the garage of his new Surrey home. His suicide note read, “I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better … P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me.” (that's a wanker, we will talk about another day)[It gets worse after the jump.]


Shortly after, Tom Evans hung himself from a willow tree behind his home in Richmond, England. There was no note, but obviously the lingering results of Badfinger’s financial woes has sucked the life from him. If that wasn’t enough, he also suffered under the stress of a pending $5 million lawsuit in the US stemming from yet another management deal gone wrong. And,of course, he was never able to get over the suicide of his friend and writing partner, Pete Ham. His wife has been quoted as saying,  “Tommy said ‘I want to be where Pete is. It’s a better place than down here’ ….”


Apart from the lime and the coconut tune, nothing else really tickled my fancy,and as a consequence this album wont be going into my collection.



Bits & Bobs;


 
He was born Harry Edward Nilsson III and raised in Bushwick, a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. His father left the family when Nilsson was three years old.


 
While trying to break into the music business, he supported himself by working the night shift at a California bank.


 
He received a $40,000 publishing royalty when the Monkees recorded his "Cuddly Toy," the song that finally earned him attention in the music industry.


 
He became a sensation after The Beatles called him their favorite singer, but that fact didn't always sit well with Nilsson. He told the Record Mirror in 1968: "I've had a lot of publicity out of the fact that the Beatles liked my album [Pandemonium Shadow Show], and named me as their favorite singer. But I didn't really like that. Obviously I was very pleased and very flattered – and now I've got to know John and Paul quite well, and we get on well together. They're both very gentle people. But I wasn't keen on getting all that publicity because of them. It made me feel that I was riding on someone else's back – in other words it was because of them that I was being talked about, and not because of me. But I think the whole thing was blown up a bit out of proportion by the Press."


 
Palling around with the Beatles proved to be a double-edged sword. His career nearly ended when the media accused him of being a bad influence on John Lennon after the two, along with a group of friends, caused a drunken spectacle at a Smothers Brothers show in West Hollywood's Troubadour in 1974. "It ruined my reputation for 10 years. Get one Beatle drunk and look what happens," Nilsson said.


 
Nilsson on songwriting (Record Mirror, 1968): "When I write my songs I do them on many different levels. There may be a message in them, and they may have a point to make – but the important thing, the first thing they should do, is entertain. Before they put across their message, they should be good to listen to – pleasant on the ear. Most people don't want to have their ears pounded with messages – they just want to relax and listen to good sounds. Pop music. But the thing is that the messages are there if they want them – the songs just have to be taken on a different level."


 
He never performed before a live audience during his entire recording career. Shortly before his death, however, he did join Ringo Starr on stage one night during the ex-Beatle's tour.


 
In 1980, he started an ill-fated movie production company called Hawkeye that released the derided Whoopi Goldberg film The Telephone (1988).


 
In 1991, he was forced to file bankruptcy after discovering that his longtime accountant was stealing from him.


 
Struggling with the painful effects of diabetes and surviving a massive heart attack in 1993, Nilsson cleaned up his act and kicked his lifelong drug and alcohol habits. Unfortunately, the damage was done. He died of heart failure in 1994.



"Coconut"


This popular novelty song from Nilsson finds a girl in tummy trouble after drinking a concoction of lime and coconut. She calls her exasperated doctor in the middle of the night, who suggests she take a little of the hair of the dog that bit her:

Put the lime in the coconut, you such a silly woman
Put a lime in the coconut and drink 'em both together
Put the lime in the coconut, then you feel better
Put the lime in the coconut, drink 'em both down
Put the lime in the coconut, and call me in the morning



 
Harry Nilsson was going to sing the song straight through with his regular voice, but producer Richard Perry encouraged him to add contrasting voices for the characters of the narrator, the girl, and the doctor.


The singer wrote the word coconut on a matchbook during a vacation in Hawaii, thinking it would make a great lyric for a song. When he returned home to Los Angeles, he found the matchbook while he was driving down the freeway and wrote the song in his car.


 
Hookfoot musicians Caleb Quaye and Ian Duck played electric and acoustic guitar on the track, respectively. Herbie Flowers was on bass guitar, while Jim Gordon contributed with percussion.


 
Dannii Minogue covered this in 1994, and it was included on her 1998 album, Girl.


 
Coca-Cola put a spin on the lyrics for an ad campaign promoting Coca-Cola with Lime, saying "You put the lime in the Coke, you nut."


 
Several movies have featured the song, including Reservoir Dogs (1992) (where it plays over the closing credits), The Ice Storm (1997), Practical Magic (1998), Dick (1999), Daddy Day Care (2003), and Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009). It was also used on TV shows like ER, House M.D., LOST, Bones, and Parenthood.


 
Homer Simpson changed the lyrics to "you put the beer in the coconut" on the season 10 Simpsons episode "Mom and Pop Art."


 
The title word is repeated 28 times.




"Without You"



This was originally recorded by Badfinger in 1970, and appeared on their second album, No Dice. Nilsson wrote most of the songs he recorded, and many listeners assumed that this gut-wrenching ballad was also one of his compositions.


 
Badfinger members Peter Ham and Tom Evans wrote this. Ham had written a song called "Is This Love?," but wasn't happy with the chorus. Evans came up with the "I cant' live if living is without you" chorus, but had no verses for it, so they put the two songs together as one.


 
Nilsson first came across this song at a Laurel Canyon party in 1971 and thought it was a Beatles song. Badfinger was signed to Apple Records, The Beatles' label. The story did not end well for Badfinger: Both Ham and Evans became despondent when they encountered various legal difficulties and committed suicide. Ham hanged himself in 1975 and Evans did the same in 1983.


 
Nilsson's version added an orchestra and gave the song a dramatic production. When Nilsson recorded it, he initially played the song slow and dark, accompanied only by piano. Producer Richard Perry recalled to Mojo magazine April 2008 that he had to persuade an unwilling Nilsson to record it as a big ballad: "I had to force him to take a shot with the rhythm section. Even while we were doing it, he'd be saying to the musicians, 'This song's awful.'"


 
Mariah Carey's version debuted at #1 in the UK in 1994 and hit #3 in the US. Nilsson died of heart failure on January 15, 1994 - the same day Carey's version was released in the US. Later in 1994, Nilsson's version was reissued to take advantage of the renewed interest.


 
This won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal in 1973.


 
The soft rock group Air Supply did a popular cover of this song in 1991.


 
January 15th is a date with some interesting coincidences where Nilsson's version of this song is concerned. He died on January 15, 1994, the same day Mariah Carey's version was released, which is also 22 years to the day after his interpretation of "Without You" hit #1 on the US charts.
 

Was listening to that T. Rex album earlier today.

The Turtles and Bolan's guitar style made it for me, Mambo Sun as an opener is a stormer. It's another album which, when it came out, you had to pretend you didn't like. But a very good collection, probably the best T.Rex production.

shedboy wrote:

apart from a couple of classics - i havent missed much  70s were pish early days on the whole! some fucking rank stuff on here.

But Blue and Pearl are classics.

things get better soon ;)

good to see you're back 
 

shedboy wrote:

Bowie was and still is limited until Ziggy Stardust - even then I have never listened to a single song let alone album in full.

Tastes i suppose.

DAY 239.
T. Rex. ...................................................Electric Warrior    (1971)









Electric Warrior takes me back to some right good times, but the funny thing is, as Pat alluded to it was a band that nobody owned up to liking in my school, they were always referred to by their songs rather than their name, pretty weird looking back right enough, and certainly nobody copied their gear.


This was still before I really took an awful lot of interest in music, 1972, when I was 14 was when I started to get into it, but that's not to say I wasn't aware of things, and as I got into it you tended to work back to artists previous offerings.


This album, and T.Rex were never a great favourite of mine, Mr Bolan sure knew how to write a catchy tune, his singles without exception had the ability to plant musical ear worms in your head, and with his irresistible hooks you do find it very hard to shake them out, but I've got to say lyrically he got away with murder a lot of the time, but because of his infectious choruses and the aforementioned hooks, nobody seemed to notice to much.


Flo and Eddie can be heard clearly on this album, helping in my humbles to "round the sound," I obviously liked "Jeepster," and "Get It On" but the standout track for me was "Cosmic Love" every time I hear that song I get a good feeling wash over me, maybe because It was my first "moonie" with a girl at the Tuftie Club (The JM) on a rainy Tuesday night.


Anyways this album was a good listen but wont be going into my collection, as my other half has half  dozen cd's of T.Rex I'm well covered on this front.



Bits & Bobs;


T. Rex singer/guitarist Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld) was a model before finding rock n' roll stardom. After he dropped out of school at age 14 to pursue acting, his striking looks and style sense earned him an appearance in a 1962 photo story for Town magazine covering the new Mod scene.


 
On quite a few of T. Rex's classic recordings ("Hot Love," "Metal Guru," "Main Man," etc.), back-up vocals are provided by Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who are best known as "Flo & Eddie," and were members of both the Turtles and the Mothers of Invention.


 
Along with the likes of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, and Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan fled his homeland of England for a spell during the early 1970s, to avoid being hit hard with taxes. Bolan resided in Monaco during this time.


 
Ringo Starr is credited as the photographer for the front and back cover of T. Rex's Slider album. Starr also directed the T. Rex documentary film, Born to Boogie.


 
During the early '70s, T. Rex was so popular back home in England that Marc Bolan was awarded his own record label, T. Rex Wax Co., of which the first release was the hit single, "Telegram Sam," on January 21, 1972.


 
Marc Bolan and David Bowie were longtime pals, and in 1974, the T. Rex leader disclosed in an interview with Melody Maker that he was planning to make a film with the Thin White Duke - with Bolan directing and Bowie writing the script. This project (which was to be science fiction-based) never came to fruition


.
The only surviving member of what is T. Rex's best-known line-up (from 1971-1974) is drummer Bill Legend. Marc Bolan died on September 16, 1977 in an auto accident, bassist Steve Currie also died in an auto accident on April 28, 1981, and percussionist Mickey Finn died from liver and kidney problems on January 11, 2003. Additionally, early percussionist Steve Peregrin Took died due to asphyxiation on October 27, 1980.


 Marc Bolan died when a purple Mini driven by his girlfriend Gloria Jones crashed at Queens Ride, southwest London, less than a mile from his home.




Jones, who was badly injured in the crash, had joined T-Rex as a backup singer and keyboard player in 1974. She is best known for recording the original version of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love."


I found this QI;


DJ Ian Dewhirst says…


 “Soft Cell recorded “Tainted Love” as a direct result of Paul Young.


 The Q-Tips (an early UK White Soul band featuring Paul Young on vocals) were playing a gig at the Warehouse and it was Paul Young’s birthday that particular night. So Mike Wiand had ordered a giant cake to be put on the stage @ 12.00pm which would have a stripper within it. And the key thing was Mike also suggested that I should play some Northern Soul for the crowd which would be down there that evening. So, for the first time in 5 years, I actually pulled out my Northern Soul stuff and took it down to the Warehouse and started playing nothing but pure Northern Soul from 9.00pm as people were coming in. As per usual Marc Almond was running the cloakroom and as per usual we ignored each other. That all changed @ around 9.50pm when I had just played Gloria Jones’s “Tainted Love”. Just as the record was ending, a breathless Marc Almond appeared having rushed from the cloakroom, up the stairs and halfway around the club to get to the DJ stand where he breathlessly asked what the record was. I told him and then he begged me to borrow it but it was one of the first copies and the one I used to play at Wigan plus still valuable so I told him to come round to mine the next day and I’d make him a cassette.


 He came round the next day, I recorded it for him and he left a happy guy.


 Several weeks later he turned up directly off the train from London and walked across the road into a club I used to play called Amnesia which happened to be right opposite the station. He brought me an acetate of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” which I gave the first play in any club anywhere that night. Right there and then I thought it would be a No.1.




Also an interview with Mark Volman, one half of The Flo And Eddie Band.

 Then you hooked up with T Rex?



 Actually we first met Mark when he was on Fly Records with Tyrannosaurus Rex. He came to the US as an opening act for Flo and Eddie. So we hung out with him and I think Micky was in the band by then. He said if were to come back to the UK to hook up with him. I think we toured the UK in 71/72 with Zappa and we looked him up. He was doing things like 'Seagull Woman' I think and then he had 'Hot Love' We ended up recording a lot with Mark, we contributed the high voices, and T Rex became all that high voiced harmonies.



 We did 'Electric Warrior', 'Jeepster' etc and appeared on 10 or 12 of his records. Including 'Bang A Gong'. We had an interesting relationship. We liked him but he had the biggest ego of any rock star ever. I mean no one in his own mind was greater than Mark Bolan. He was warm generous, funny and had a great personality, but we used to tell him what he was like. Our catch phrase was, 'Mark Bolan would be no one without us' (laughs).


 We even parodied him on a song called 'Another Pop Star's Life Goes By'. We wrote that one for Mark and Garry Glitter, David Bowie, Slade, Sweet and all those bands who were so full of themselves at the time' We had a special relationship


"Get It On"


 
In England, this was called "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." The title was changed on the American release so it would be less offensive.


 
This is about sex, but most of the imagery is vague enough that many people did not pick up on it.


 
This is a great example of "Glam Rock." There was nothing all that distinctive about glam music, but it was characterized by the outrageous, often effeminate costumes the performers wore and the very theatrical stage shows.


 
The last line, "Meanwhile, I'm still thinking..." was a nod to a Chuck Berry song called "Little Queenie," which contains the same lyric and inflection.


 
In the US, this was the only hit for T-Rex. They had several hits in England before glam rock fell out of favor.


 
Mark Volman and Howard Kaylen sang backup vocals. Known as "Flo and Eddie," Volman and Kaylen were members of The Turtles.


 
The band released this a year after they shortened their name. They had been Tyrannosaurus Rex.


 
After falling from fame a few years after this came out, lead singer Marc Bolan was killed in 1977 when his girlfriend crashed their car into a tree.


 
In 1985, the "Supergroup" Power Station, which included Robert Palmer and members of Duran Duran, released this as a single. They used the original title on both sides of the Atlantic: "Get It On"


 
Marc Bolan took his name from Bob Dylan... BO from Bob and LAN from Dylan.


 
Blondie recorded a live version for their 1978 Parallel Lines album.




"Jeepster"



This music to this song was based on a Howlin' Wolf blues song called "You'll Be Mine," which was written by Willie Dixon. As is typical of many blues songs, there are many sexual references in the lyrics, which are made in the form of car metaphors. In interviews, Marc Bolan acknowledged that he "lifted it from a Howlin' Wolf song."


 
T-Rex lead singer Marc Bolan had left the band's label, Fly Records, and signed with EMI shortly before this was released. This caused some controversy as Fly didn't have Bolan's permission to release the song.


 
Marc Bolan explained: "I don't sing the old rock 'n' roll songs myself. I prefer to change the words and make new songs out of them. That's all 'Jeepster' is."


 
Tony Visconti produced this track. The American knob twiddler went on to do a lot of work with David Bowie.




Visconti recalled to Uncut in 2016: "When I heard 'Jeepster'. I thought, 'Wow, this is seriously different.' I know there's an old blues song he copied, but he threw in some dramatic melodic and chord changes. The song's in A but the chorus jumps to the key of C – no one in the 50s did that!"


 
Protex recorded this for their 1980 album Strange Obsessions.



Here's something I didn't know, Tony Visconti was married to Mary "Those Were The Days" Hopkin, till they divorced in 1981
 

 

PatReilly wrote:

We never knew it was about a shaven headed transvestite, in fact I never realised that until today.

Not sure if I believe it, either.
 

Maybe this is where the writer/critic who wrote the book got it from?

Although Hunky Dory was Bowie’s most attractive album to date and has since become one of his most beloved records, it came out to a quiet, politely appreciative reception in December 1971, making the need for a dramatic publicity stunt all the more urgent. So, in early 1972, David Bowie decided to be gay. Very publicly gay.


 Tentative moves towards ‘coming out’ had been made earlier. There’d been an interview with gay magazine Jeremy in 1970, which presented the singer as very much on ‘our side’, without printing anything like a definitive declaration of his orientation. An April 1971 profile in Rolling Stone edged nearer: the piece ended with Bowie flirtatiously instructing his interviewer John Mendelsohn to ‘tell your readers that they can make up their minds about me when I begin getting adverse publicity: when I’m found in bed with Raquel Welch’s husband’. In the piece, Mendelsohn also reported that when Bowie turned up for a guest spot on San Francisco’s progressive radio station KSAN-FM, he told the ‘incredulous DJ that his last album was … a collection of reminiscences about his experiences as a shaven-headed transvestite’. But these were flippant, jesting remarks, and hardly anyone had noticed. So Bowie turned to the media outlet in which his announcement could make the biggest splash: Melody Maker.


 From the late sixties through to the end of 1973, Melody Maker was Britain’s leading music magazine. By 1972, it was also the best selling, having outstripped the pop-oriented New Musical Express and achieving a weekly circulation that hovered just above 200,000. ‘You’d go to work on a Thursday morning on the Tube on the Central Line, and any male under twenty-five would be reading the Maker the morning it came out,’ recalls Melody Maker staff writer Richard Williams. Thanks to a phenomenal pass-on rate, it was read by maybe five, perhaps as many as ten times the number who bought it.




Then came the quote that reverberated around the world and instantly ignited Bowie’s career: ‘I’m gay. And always have been, even when I was David Jones.’


Have got to be honest I take most of the bits & bobs as accurate, mainly because I haven't got enough time to validate every one, there's no' enough hours in the day fir that.


 

DAY 241.
Randy Newman...........................Sail Away   (1972)







Have to tell ya that was a long half an hour. They say this album is satirical, but the only amusement I found was listening to Newman sing, it sounds like he needs his dentures renewed or at least looked at, and the only thing I found funny was, I actually lasted the whole half an hour.


The only two tracks that I knew "Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear" and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" were much better served by the Alan Price and Tom Jones covers in my humbles.


This one wont be getting purchased.



Bits & Bobs:

Randy Newman was born in Los Angeles, California, USA as Randall Stuart Newman. A week after his birth, Randy's family moved to New Orleans, (his mother's hometown).


 
He is the nephew of noted Hollywood film-score composers Alfred Newman, Emil Newman and Lionel Newman.


 
Randy Newman was already writing songs from the time he was 16 but at first he didn't have a lot of self-confidence and he needed pushing. He told The Big Issue:

"My friend Lenny Waronker was responsible for me starting songwriting. I would always play him things first. And even when I would fall out with a tune and say it was no good - and I would really mean it - he would tell me it was really good. He started me off, and for years he was my courage."


 
Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a movie composer. His movie scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Meet the Parents and Seabiscuit. He has also scored several Disney-Pixar movie including: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars, Toy Story 3, and Monsters University.


 
Newman has won two Academy Awards. The movie composer told the Big Issue that he is proud of his many Oscar nominations.

"That is the biggest thing for me - the fact that they like my stuff. It probably means an inordinate amount because when I was about 5 years old in New Orleans I would be at this sound stage next to the horn players, some of the best in the world, and there they were - I respected them so much. And the fact that now the people doing that think I'm good means a lot to me."


 
He is of Jewish descent and an atheist.


 
Newman has been married to Gretchen Preece since 1990. They have two children. He was previously married to German-born Roswitha Schmale from 1967 to 1985, and they had three sons together.


 
Newman is particularly adept at writing to spec, making him a favorite for producers looking for movie or TV songs. "I do it easily, and I do it well," he told Rolling Stone. "People say, 'Isn't it a sellout?' No, it's who I am. I'm a professional songwriter."


 
His songs aren't typically personal, which helps make him an effective writer for others. This is largely because of his lifestyle, which isn't very rock and roll. "What am I gonna write about? Sitting at home and reading and playing with the kids?," he once asked.


 
Newman had an epiphany when he wrote a song called "Lonelt At The Top," which is sung from the perspective of a singing star who still finds things to complain about. Newman thought an artist like Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand would record it as a satire of sorts, but they both passed, with Streisand explaining that her audience wants her to mean what she sings. Newman realized that most of the listening public feels this way, but that's not his style. From that point on, he knew that he would never have mass appeal as a solo artist.




"Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear"



Randy Newman wrote this song in 1965. He describes it as the "first time he wasn't trying to be Carol King." Added Newman, "My first songs were bad rock 'n' roll, typical Shirelles stuff." Newman recorded the song for the first time for his 1972 album Sail Away.


 
This song is purely fictional. There is no actual Simon Smith with a dancing bear.


 
Newman originally offered this song to Harpers Bizarre. He had briefly been a member when they were known as The Tikris.


 
Alan Price (a founding member of The Animals who went solo in 1965) recorded this song in 1967. It became a #4 hit in the UK. Though it went virtually unnoticed in the US, it was one of the first times Randy Newman achieved any international recognition.
In an interview with Dawn Eden, Alan Price said "I quite like childlike songs, which sometimes cross over. Think of Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear. A lot of children like it, but a lot of messed-up liberals like it, too, because they read all sorts of social whatchamacallit into it. I never even thought of it."



 
This song was featured on the very first Muppet Show. It was performed by Scooter and Fozzie the Bear.


 
Harry Nilsson covered this song in 1969. (probably in his corderoy goonie)


 
Randy Newman was trying to pen a song for Frank Sinatra Jr. when he came up with this. He explained to The Big Issue how it provoked a change in his songwriting:

"I wrote it in 1964 and I was trying to come up with rhymes with 'Suzie' and it was like 'Suzie, doozy.' It had a lyric like, with a girl's name in the title. I couldn't take it! I thought of 'coat to wear' and then 'bear' came into my mind and it set me off to the style that I still write in today. There are songs I could have written in 1965 or 2015. It's the same guy, clearly, for a long time."




"You Can Leave Your Hat On"



When Newman performed this song during a live radio session with the California based station KCRW, in October 2003, he said he wrote it when he was about 26 years old, and thought it was a joke at the time, but as he grew older he began to take it seriously.



 
Joe Cocker recorded a swaggering version for his 1986 album Cocker which was used in a striptease scene in 9½ Weeks, a movie that was equally explicit as this song. In 1997, a version by Tom Jones appeared in the movie The Full Monty - also in a strip scene. With the exception of the '60s instrumental "The Stripper" this is the most famous song about stripping.


 
Tom Jones recalled his recording of this song for The Full Monty soundtrack: "We recorded it in an afternoon on a day off when I was on the road on a UK tour. Composer Anne Dudley was doing the music. They had Joe Cocker's version of You Can Leave Your Hat On, but the director thought his performance was a bit too serious.

Who knew that this film would do what it did? It was supposed to be a low-budget, small British film, but it became a worldwide smash, so I was thrilled be a part of it."


 
On first appearances this appears to be a risqué song in which the singer invites his lover to slowly remove almost all her clothing. However, Newman told NPR in a May 8, 2013 interview that he didn't set out to pen a racy tune. "The guy is just - I always thought of him as a fairly weak fellow," he said. "It sounded like - and to me, I would've thought the girl could break him in half. He's not asking much. You know, Joe Cocker and Tom Jones had hits with it, and they did it, you know, about higher than I did and louder, as if it were a real sexual kind of thing. I could have done it. I just didn't think of it. But I thought of it as, you know, as not very."



 

What a line!

"Gonna ventilate my woman, if I catch her with another man"






Flamin' Groovies version of Robert Johnson's classic song 32-20, another superb track.

Queen Bitch from Hunky Dory would be in my top five Bowie songs, great album Hunky Dory. Re the stuttering on Changes, and how original it was, I think a few bands had stuttery lyrics at the time, mind Marmalade's Cousin Norman which predates Hunky Dory by a few months.

Look out the Highway Star/Hang onto Yourself mash up, to tie Deep Purple and Bowie together.



 

Last edited by PatReilly (09/4/2018 9:46 am)