Category: Music

They ARE a girl group!

D.F. Rogers, in his “Denro the D.J.” persona, will introduce this K3 video, which he seems to feel is perhaps their most accessible to American listeners.

“Ladies and Gentlemen — Kah-Thrrree!” Wow! Hey, this is the missing link! This IS Girl Group Music! And they sing part of it in English — and very well! They even do a few Klangs! They do the Supremes thing — but again no “Diana’s” up front — they sing as a group and spread the solos parts equally. The interesting thing is that it seems to be the one K3 song that has comments [on YouTube] in English! The comments in English are divided between “What th…???” and “Awesome!” — mainly because parts are clearly in English and they have no idea what the heck the rest of that stuff is! It seems like it’s an American group – but it’s mind-bending! It has an English title, too. This a gateway to the real hard stuff! Pure Flemish! Een Klang Kusha!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/K3LoveYouBaby.flv 448 308]Note: This video clip required major surgery to fix the shape of the image, so you will see some re-compression artifacts.

Bonus K3 Video! This one is also partially in English, and required no special treatment other than being scaled up from 320×240. Shades of “Happy Days”! Rather than being just fun-loving, Karen, Kathleen and Kristel seem a bit boy crazy here, over a bunch of lunkheads, but we can deal. 😉
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/JUL/K3HippyShake.flv 448 336]

Jonathan and Darlene Edwards

Jo Stafford and Paul Weston

Considering Jo Stafford’s stellar career and her versatile singing talent, it’s somewhat ironic that she won her only Grammy for a comedy record. Jonathan and Darlene Edwards were the alter egos of Jo and her husband Paul Weston. They were a dreadfully earnest — or earnestly dreadful — lounge act, with Jo’s perfect pitch helping Darlene with her tin ear utterly destroy songs with stunning off-key precision.

You’ll find a wonderfully awful collection of Jonathan and Darlene here on MySpace. The link to Jo’s label, Corinthian Records, is wrong. Use this one instead.

“GI Jo” Stafford

\"GI\" Jo Stafford

With Jo Stafford gone, World War II and the Big Band era slip further away from living memory. But Jo’s recordings remain. Thanks go to D.F. Rogers for helping me compile this collection.

This Jo Stafford record is from Christmas ’42, a year after Pearl Harbor…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/ManhattanSerenade.mp3]

The year 1944 was a big one for Jo Stafford. She started it with the Pied Pipers, who recorded one version of the popular novelty tune “Mairzy Doats.”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/MairzyDoats.mp3]

Jo left the Pied Pipers to join Johnny Mercer, one of the principals behind Capitol Records, and she sang “Candy” with him.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/Candy.mp3]

Hey, I’m getting better at this. I can tell this is Mercer and not Tex Beneke. Mercer didn’t have the control that Tex, let alone Jo, had.

On D-Day Jo had a song on the charts from the movie “Cover Girl,” called “Long Ago (And Far Away)”…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/LongAgoAndFarAway.mp3]

In September she could be heard on the radio singing “It Could Happen To You”…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/ItCouldHappenToYou.mp3]

After the war, Christmas ’45, when the Baby Boom started, there was “Symphony”…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/Symphony.mp3]

And in September ’46, while those babies were being born, Jo sang “There Is Always”.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/JUL/ThisIsAlways.mp3]