The Singing Nun - Soeur Sourire

Awash in obscurism and post-holiday stupor, I deliver unto you this gift - less for the music than the story.

The Singing Nun, Sister Luc-Gabrielle, (aka Jeanine Deckers) recorded souvenir records to be given away to guests of her convent in Belgium. Somehow she became a sensation in Europe as a result. In December, 1963, her single, Dominique, topped the US pop charts for 4 weeks. In the wake of JFK's assasination radio stations turned to softer and more religious themed music and the Singing Nun fit the bill. The song relegated Louie Louie to the #2 spot.

Shortly after the success she left the convent feeling the church was too conservative. She had never desired the limelight and also left the music business. But in 1966 she recorded a second album pointedly titled I Am Not A Star that failed disastrously, though it did take on several controversial subjects and included the ode to birth control, Glory be to God for the Golden Pill. When the album tanked she founded and ran a school for children with autism.

A sappy biopic about her starring Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban was released in 1966, though Deckers denounced it as complete fiction.

Throughout the 70's she fought the Belgian government over their demand for payment of back taxes. She claimed the convent and a former manager had taken most of her money. She also came out as a lesbian. In 1982, out of desperation she recorded Dominique again as sort of a new wave disco cover in hopes of raising the funds needed to pay the back taxes. It bombed. Three years later, citing the financial pressures she and her lover of the previous ten years committed suicide. Ironically, the very day of their deaths, and unbeknownst to them, the Belgian equivalent of ASCAP awarded her $300,000 in back royalties owed her - more than enough to have paid off her $65,000 in back taxes.

To this day she remains the only Belgian artist to ever top the US charts.

So settle back and sing along with the sister - just don't make it a habit.

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And here's a vid of the 1982 disco version (very much a camp classic).

Tubeway Army/Gary Numan - Replicas/The Pleasure Principal

The synths on these records are thick and full of volts... or amps - or whatever. His voice makes me cry, the drums are tight and in the pocket, the bass has chorus on it (or is it flange?) and still sounds cool. Back to the synths: they were, I think, all monophonic, so all chords are overdubs of multiple monophonic synths. Maybe? I'm not sure. But still, so cool! I want to know what kind were used and be a collector scum and get one. This is really good for blasting in the car or cranking up on a nice pair of headphones. It's interesting to hear the leap between the two. Replicas is still with Tubeway Army and has an 'old-fashioned' Gibson/Marshall crunch amongst the synths. If you start getting burnt out on that one (it's great, but plods a bit in comparison to the airtight follow-up), skip ahead to The Pleasure Principal. Here he got a new band (but he kept his bass player) and did away with the guitars for the most part. The rhythm section with the new drummer and the sparkling supercharged fatness of the synths keeps the rock alive with some jaw-dropping results here and there, if you're into this sort of thing. Sure he sounds a bit like Bowie, but that's okay with me - there's more of a punkish sneer happening with Numan that I enjoy.



Replicate!

Pleasure yourself.

Butthole Surfers - Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac

Must keep it a little weird around here or I start getting paranoid.

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Wikipedia: The band embarked on a decidedly more psychedelic direction with their first LP. However, while the album's first half, and in particular "Cherub," have definite psychedelic qualities, elements of traditional punk ("Butthole Surfer"), blues ("Lady Sniff"), surf rock ("Mexican Caravan"), and country rock ("Gary Floyd") are also on display.

Dum Dum is also notable for being another song in the Butthole Surfers' catalogue to be based around parts of a Black Sabbath song whilst the lyrics revolve around an entirely different concept from the original. The drums are lifted in this instance, from Children Of The Grave, from the Master Of Reality album.

Many of Psychic...'s tracks were enhanced with extensive tape editing and, in some cases, the addition of non-traditional instrumentation, including the barrage of bizarre sounds (spitting, vomiting, Spanish radio station, etc.) heard in "Lady Sniff." Lead vocalist Gibby Haynes debuted a new vocal technique by singing through a bullhorn for some songs, and played saxophone and eardrums on "Negro Observer" and "Cowboy Bob." This was the first Surfers studio album to feature double drummers King Coffey and Teresa Nervosa, and the last with bass player Bill Jolly, who had also performed on the band's first two releases.

Approximately half the songs on this album, including "Negro Observer," "Lady Sniff," "Cherub," "Mexican Caravan," "Cowboy Bob," and "Gary Floyd," are staples of the Surfers' live shows.

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Debarge - In A Special Way

Undoubtedly a perfect example of it is what it is. Pure and sincere and I really don't use that many (different) drugs anymore... unless you call sweet cleans soul some kinda jenke then geddemn hook a brother up, na mean!?

This forces to remove you from your hepster barriers, your kool suspenders. Jyst listen.

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From the Dean of American Rock Critics, Robert Christgau: When first I fell in love with the austere lilt and falsetto fantasy they've pinned to plastic here, I thought it was just that I'd finally outgrown the high-energy fixation that's always blocked my emotional access to falsetto ballads. So I went back to Spinners and Blue Magic, Philip Bailey and my man Russell Thompkins Jr., and indeed, they all struck a little deeper--but only, I soon realized, because the superior skill of these kids had opened me up. I know of no pop music more shameless in its pursuit of pure beauty--not emotional (much less intellectual) expression, just voices joining for their own sweet sake, with the subtle Latinized rhythms (like the close harmonies themselves) working to soften odd melodic shapes and strengthen the music's weave. High energy doesn't always manifest itself as speed and volume--sometimes it gets winnowed down to its essence. A+

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Eddie Hinton - Hard Luck Guy

Posthumous releases can really bite it. Cobbled together from crap that sucked in the first place, the records are usually nothing but shit looking for sentimental dollars.

Not so this.

amg:

Guitarist, songwriter, and singer Eddie Hinton may be one of the great, unheralded white blues musicians of all time. Hinton died far too young at the age of 51 on July 28, 1995, yet his guitar playing can be heard all over famous recordings by famous people — hit records by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke, Percy Sledge, the Staple Singers, the Dells, Johnny Taylor, Elvis Presley, Boz Scaggs, Hour Glass, Otis Redding, and even reggae star Toots Hibbert of Toots & the Maytals.

Hinton was a session guitarist non-pareil. After working with Southern bands like the Spooks and the Five Minutes, he played lead guitar for Muscle Shoals Sound rhythm section from 1967 to 1971. What most people didn't know at the time was that Hinton was also a talented singer, songwriter, arranger and producer in his own right. In the late '60s, Muscle Shoals was something of a hit factory for Atlantic Records recording artists, under the careful, patient tutelage of legendary producer Jerry Wexler. Hinton was just 22 when he was invited to the Shoals area by fellow songwriter and producer Martin Greene. The Hinton/Greene songwriting and producing team produced several country/soul hits, including "Cover Me," and "It's All Wrong But It's Alright" for Percy Sledge.

Sadly, Hinton's 1978 critically hailed Capricorn Records debut, Very Extremely Dangerous, was released shortly before the Macon, Georgia-based label folded. In 1982, Jimmy Johnson of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section took Hinton into the studio to record a half-dozen songs for a new album, but that project was never released, and the blow to his ego, coupled with a divorce, sent Hinton into a personal tailspin. Changing musical trends brought popular tastes further away from blues and soul for a time in the '80s (until the rise of Stevie Ray Vaughan brought blues back into vogue) and Hinton was living on the streets in Decatur, Alabama when he ran into an old friend, John D. Wyker. Wyker and Hinton were friends in the University of Alabama's drum and bugle corps. Wyker saw to it that Hinton again had housing and a plan to record again. With the help of some friends, Owen Brown and Jeff Simpson, Wyker began recording Hinton at Birdland Recording Studio and the new songs were combined with the tunes recorded by Jimmy Johnson in 1982. The result was Letters from Mississippi, an album that sparked a career renaissance for Hinton. It wasn't long before Hinton was in demand across Europe, Alabama, and the rest of the south for his unique, soulful blues vocals and expert guitar technique. Wyker continued to serve as a musical guru for Hinton's career rebirth and brought the singer and guitarist to Rounder Records' Bullseye blues subsidiary. Cry & Moan and Very Blue Highway were the result. Hinton recovered his health and general well-being and moved back home to Birmingham to live with his mother, all the while writing refreshingly good original songs. He made a short tour of Italy before returning to Birdland Studios in early 1995 to record a new album. As he was putting finishing touches on the new batch of songs, he suffered a fatal heart attack. The results, Hard Luck Guy, were released on a revived Capricorn Records in late 1998, and the songs are some of the most soul-stirring, thoughtful, and well-recorded tracks ever put on an album by a white blues artist. Anyone who is a fan of Otis Redding or Al Green will latch onto these songs like a hummingbird to a magnolia blossom. Also worth seeking out are his two releases for Rounder, Cry & Moan, and Very Blue Highway, as well as his European-only release, Letters from Mississippi.

To be sure, Hinton packed a lot of inspiring music into his 51 years by way of all the legendary sessions on which he played lead guitar at Muscle Shoals. His vocals were also singularly unique, firmly planted in the South and drenched with second-nature blues and soul feeling.

Jerry Wexler's liner notes for Hinton's last release, Hard Luck Guy, (the title a nod to his prime influence, Otis Redding,) released on a revived Capricorn Records, are worth the price of the disc in and of themselves. Wexler says of Hinton in the liner notes: "He remains unique, a white boy who truly sang and played in the spirit of the great black soul artists he venerated. With Eddie it wasn't imitation; it was totally created, with a fire and fury that was as real as Otis Redding's and Wilson Pickett's."

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S.O.S. Band - On The Rise

Debarge may fill somebody's pipe, but this is my wayback crack.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis slapped this shit around till it got enough groove to sell some records, but kept the funk that made it honest.

Go ahead, just try to keep your ass in one spot when it busts out with Just Be Good To Me. Go ahead, I dare ya.

Get up on this.

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Password = 80sonspeed

Art Pepper - Meets The Rhythim Section

Chet Baker always gets the nod when the whole West Coast Cool scene gets talked about. He could play, had a distinctive voice, was movie star pretty, and his self-destructive mythology makes for good copy. Never mind that Baker actually loved the myth and loved being a junkie even more.

Art Pepper was a different cat. He was as cool, but his self-destruction was not his delight. He didn't like being a junkie, fought his addiction and its negative affects with on and off success throughout his life. And unlike Baker, he became a better musician by the end.

After a couple of stints in the clink in the mid 50s, he was really trying to get clean when he got the chance to record this piece, a comeback of sorts. It was arranged for him by his wife, though she kept it a secret from him so as not to send him spiraling down. He was only informed of the session the morning of.

He hadn't played in 6 months. His horn was broken and he had to fashion a working instrument from borrowed pieces. Packing a dried-out cork taped to his sax with a bandaid he stepped into the studio shaking like a leaf. It only got worse for him. The sidemen were Miles' guys, men he had idolized, but never met (and had not been told would be there): Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. They were the epitome of East Coast Hot. The first number they laid down, You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, Pepper literally forgot the melody and was forced to figure it out as tape ran. Everything said this session would be a disaster.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is precisely the looseness/tension. the Cool/Hot, the desperation/ahh, fuck it feeling that makes this Pepper's best recording from his early years. He grows and gains confidence throughout the record. You can hear his bandmates challenging him on, popping him forward. It is at times dazzling as in Tin Tin Deo when he rips away the cool and swings it hard before dropping it back into an ocean of ease.

Out of context it's a stand out recording, but with its history this record is a testament to brilliant musicianship, courage under fire, and a man beating back his demons, if only for a while.

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