Swinging London wasn’t the only place in Europe that was swinging in the Sixties. France had its own brand of Pop music, with a decidedly feminine fragrance. This collection of videos includes Sylvie Vartan, Francoise Hardy, Chantal Goya, and France Gall. It starts with — surprise! — Petula Clark, who was a Pop star in France before returning to recording in English with “Downtown”.
Author: DOuG pRATt
Superchick!
Before Charlie’s Angels, there was… Superchick!
So who was Harry Nilsson, and where are the Apple digital downloads?
Almost three years ago I mentioned a documentary called Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? It seems that at long last the film has a distribution deal, and will be out on DVD before the end of year.
And this just in, Denro says…
I just saw it in an email from James Taylor. The first step in Beatles stuff being available for download?
Apple Records Catalogue Remastered and Reissued on CD and Digital Download, Classics Set for Release on October 26th
Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music raise the curtain on remastered CD and digital download releases of 15 key albums from the Apple Records catalog. All 15 titles will be released on October 26th. Most of the physical CDs will include bonus material. Together, the 15 albums represent the first ever Apple Records releases to be available via digital download.
Is see that somebody has asked what I asked Denro — “Where is “Brother” by Lon & Derrek [Van Eaton]?” And there’s no mention of the other Apple, or iTunes. Perhaps Apple Records is testing the waters for doing its own online Beatles catalog.
The fact is that the ultimate digital copy of the Beatles catalog is already available on Beatles.com, in (lossless) FLAC 44.1 kHz 24-bit and MP3 320 Kbps formats.
Texasize Me
Denro says my lack of appreciation for Mitch Miller is due to the fact that his recording of The Yellow Rose of Texas was #1 in September, 1955, the week that I was born. Well, it’s true, I would have preferred anything else, even The Ballad of Davy Crockett!
The first video has the original Mitch Miller recording of The Yellow Rose of Texas…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Lakexqqqc
… and the second has Stan Freberg’s parody of Mitch. Both are taken from 78 rpm records posted by fave YouTube member 45s4FR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-By0vBrzDE
The Yellow Rose of Texas was written in 1858, and Texas has certainly changed since then, so let’s update things a bit, with this pair of TV commercials, made by an old friend of mine, for a restaurant chain called Cotton Patch Cafe. The first one has a straight-forward ZZ Top-style boogie…
…and I love the second spot, featuring music of epic proportions to go with the food of epic portions!
Post 2000
Well here it is, one month shy of the blog’s 4th anniversary. I began when Eric was entering high school, and next month he starts college. Along the way I’ve deleted some items, while others were lost to technical difficulties, so it’s taken a little longer to get here than it would have otherwise, but this is post number 2000. And, by coincidence, driving to work today, my car hit a milestone of its own.
Whole lotta wreckin’ goin’ on
Some years back, for one of Denro’s birthdays I got him a book called Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew, about the session musicians who reigned in the Los Angeles recording studios of the 60’s, into the 70’s. Later, I heard about a documentary being made about the Wrecking Crew, but the production was delayed so many times I forgot about it.
Robbie Leff has pointed out that the documentary finally exists, but has not yet been released. Some of the interviews obviously were filmed quite some time ago — and good thing, too. What a shock it is, seeing Dick Clark as he was before his stroke, but I don’t believe he didn’t know about session musicians until the Monkees.