Category: Music

Petula Clark Rocks!

Petula Clark is my all-time reference for female Pop singing talent, professionalism and sexiness. Not only is there nobody better, there’s nobody as good. Having said that, what a great cover on the new Collector’s Choice Music catalog!

Petula Clark Rocks

It says see page 3, so here’s page 3.

Petula Clark CCMusic

I’ll be ordering both of these new items. Video of Petula is always a treat, so I’m looking forward to the DVD. Which reminds me. Goodbye, Mr. Chips will finally be released on DVD in a couple of weeks.

David Moncur, our correspondent in Scotland, wrote to say:

Here is the Dutch concert Max proms that she was involved in, in December. Her voice sounds a bit strained, but she’s looking great.

http://www.omroepmax.nl/?waxtrapp=pvfhfDsHnHUVGHwB#

Click on “Afspelen” to get the show. She’s towards the end of the first half, and in the middle of the second half. This is the televised show, so they have cut it, and it doesn’t show all her songs….. Double click on it to make it screen size.

Happy 2009

Dave

Thank you, Dave! She does indeed look great. I wish I could do more than provide the link here, but the video is in Real format, and there’s not a lot I can do with that.

I was poking around TheRadio.com recently and happened to catch this sweet and lovely tune by Petula. Enjoy!

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JAN/TheRadioPetula.mp3]

Paul and Mary Poppins

Barely treading water here with the blog, I’m sorry to say. Unavoidable, with Boston Marathon training underway, so I’ll do another quickie post.

Motown Records just had its 50th anniversary. Label founder Berry Gordy made a point of catching up with the Beatles in 1964 before they returned to England to film “A Hard Day’s Night.”

George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Berry Gordy, John Lennon

At the movie studio there was some overlap between the filming of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Mary Poppins”. Here’s Paul with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.

Dick Van Dyke, Julie Andrews, Paul McCartney

A Tale of Two Transfers

Many YouTube videos have such low technical quality as to be barely watchable, so my sister Jean was impressed by an OK copy, despite being a vertically cropped version with the wrong aspect ratio, of the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night doing “If I Fell.” Here’s how it appears and sounds on YouTube…

… and here’s my own transfer, from LaserDisc, captured on a Pinnacle 500 PCI. Better?

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/JAN/IfIFell.flv 480 360]

Bingo rhymes with Ringo

As promised last week, here is Terry Hooper, the future husband of Prudence Bury, as the croupier in A Hard Day’s Night. When I was a kid I thought Wilfrid Brambell was an unnecessary extra bit of comic relief, but now I think he was essential to the overall success of the movie.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/JAN/TerryHooper.flv 480 360]

Mambo Jambo

Go back to the very funny Men in Coats video I posted and watch the first three minutes. It’s Mambo music from Cuba. The first tune is “Mambo Jambo,” and here’s a recording of it by Prado Perez, from 1959, the year Castro took over.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JAN/MamboJambo.mp3]

Great stuff! OK, now go back to the K3 New Year video and listen from 0:08 to 0:20. It’s some of the same music used by Men in Coats. See? I said you’d heard it before.

Mambo was big in the late 40’s into the 50’s, and one of its biggest names was this guy, whose studio later gave the green light to Star Trek.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JAN/ILoveLucy.mp3]