Thanks for Vito & the Salutations, Ken! The Wife and I doo-wopped and finger-popped along. It was, in fact, the version that introduced me to this lovely melody, and I still think it does it more than justice -- there's more than one way to express such tender feelings, especially if you're young, horny and Italian. Happy Thanksgiving!
I always enjoy these and listen to see if you've included any celebrity records from my "Hollywood Hi-Fi" book. This time, you kicked it off with the gateway drug for addicts of bad celebrity singing, William Shatner's "Mr. Tambourine Man." As noted in the book, virtually every celebrity we asked to interview first wanted to know, "Is Shatner in it?" That's like asking, "Is Jesus in the Bible?"
One of these always just makes me sad: Julie London's "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy." She's a great icon of lounge jazz (when my wife Laura won an award for her last retro jazz album, she accepted it in Julie London's name.) Julie retired from music shortly after this, and who can blame her? This is from a period when her kind of music was so out of favor that record companies forced older artists to record godawful, inappropriate pop hits. That's how we got this abomination, Mel Torme doing "Sunshine Superman," Ella Fitzgerald's "Sunshine of Your Love" (they actually named the album after that), and Tony Bennett's "MacArthur Park" and other tracks from "Tony Sings The Great Hits of Today!," an album forced on him by Clive Davis which Tony called "rubbish." But to me, the most depressing of all was an entire album called "Twist With Keely Smith." Laura made me take it off because the degradation was just too painful for her to contemplate.
BTW, I shared this podcast on our Hollywood Hi-Fi Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hollywoodhifibook/posts/1222041471618493
But Facebook wouldn't let me share that post on other pages for alleged "security" reasons. I guess they classify Shatner's recordings as acts of domestic terrorism.
Oy Gevalt! I'm halfway through and some of these are a real tough listen. I wonder if they were heard in a different context whether they would be perceived differently. Probably not. My guess is that some of these are album cuts, which may not get the scrutiny of a "single". I don't know.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the legendary WKRP turkey episode originated in a real promotion at a Dallas station, KBOX-AM, where turkeys were flung from the back of a truck. They couldn't fly, either.
Berlin Voices did a whole album of Billy Joel covers. I am going to be charitable and assume, as they are actually German, that the message of the song was lost in translation to them!
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Thanks for Vito & the Salutations, Ken! The Wife and I doo-wopped and finger-popped along. It was, in fact, the version that introduced me to this lovely melody, and I still think it does it more than justice -- there's more than one way to express such tender feelings, especially if you're young, horny and Italian. Happy Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on ALLENTOWN: An upbeat version of a song about massive unemployment.
ReplyDelete...and Happy Thanksgiving, Ken!
ReplyDeleteMission accomplished. This was God awful. So painful that I skipped forward many times to get to your commentary.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy these and listen to see if you've included any celebrity records from my "Hollywood Hi-Fi" book. This time, you kicked it off with the gateway drug for addicts of bad celebrity singing, William Shatner's "Mr. Tambourine Man." As noted in the book, virtually every celebrity we asked to interview first wanted to know, "Is Shatner in it?" That's like asking, "Is Jesus in the Bible?"
ReplyDeleteOne of these always just makes me sad: Julie London's "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy." She's a great icon of lounge jazz (when my wife Laura won an award for her last retro jazz album, she accepted it in Julie London's name.) Julie retired from music shortly after this, and who can blame her? This is from a period when her kind of music was so out of favor that record companies forced older artists to record godawful, inappropriate pop hits. That's how we got this abomination, Mel Torme doing "Sunshine Superman," Ella Fitzgerald's "Sunshine of Your Love" (they actually named the album after that), and Tony Bennett's "MacArthur Park" and other tracks from "Tony Sings The Great Hits of Today!," an album forced on him by Clive Davis which Tony called "rubbish." But to me, the most depressing of all was an entire album called "Twist With Keely Smith." Laura made me take it off because the degradation was just too painful for her to contemplate.
BTW, I shared this podcast on our Hollywood Hi-Fi Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hollywoodhifibook/posts/1222041471618493
But Facebook wouldn't let me share that post on other pages for alleged "security" reasons. I guess they classify Shatner's recordings as acts of domestic terrorism.
Oy Gevalt! I'm halfway through and some of these are a real tough listen. I wonder if they were heard in a different context whether they would be perceived differently.
ReplyDeleteProbably not. My guess is that some of these are album cuts, which may not get the scrutiny of a "single". I don't know.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the legendary WKRP turkey episode originated in a real promotion at a Dallas station, KBOX-AM, where turkeys were flung from the back of a truck. They couldn't fly, either.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ajc.com/life/radiotvtalk-blog/unearthed-audio-claims-that-a-wkrp-like-radio-promotion-turkey-drop-actually-happened/5M5U577MFZFZTPQM54GWNXRH4A/
Berlin Voices did a whole album of Billy Joel covers. I am going to be charitable and assume, as they are actually German, that the message of the song was lost in translation to them!
ReplyDelete