Plain Or Pan?
Under The Covers With Sandie Shaw
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Sandie Shaw is best known as being the bare-footed, bowl-cut headed Eurovision winner in 1967. The rest of the music world may have been happily psyching out to Syd Barrett, Hendrix and Woodstock but Sandie found success with her inoffensive brand of pop music.
Some of you may be aware that this work enjoyed a critical reappraisal in the mid 80s, thanks to the patronage of Morrissey. Indeed, the Smiths ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ was a direct steal (in title if not music) from Sandie’s ‘Heaven Knows I’m Missing Him Now’. She went on to return the favour by recording her version of 3 Smiths tracks (a later post for sure) as well as covering other stuff of the day like Lloyd Cole’s ‘Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?’ What many people don’t know is that toward the end of 1969 she had a go at producing her own album.
The resulting album, ‘Reviewing The Situation’ was unlike anything she had done so far. The album contained covers of the more alternative acts of the day. In fact, she was the first person to cover a Led Zeppelin song. ‘Your Time Is Gonna’ Come’ (originally on the first Led Zeppelin album) is a belter. It’s fairly faithfull to the original. Starting out on a 12 string guitar, it comes on all heavy organ through the verses and features some brilliant double tracked vocals in the chorus. Better than Led Zeppelin’s? It’s not far off.
It also features a flute-happy, organ heavy version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Lay Lady Lay’, Sandie’s whispered vocals to the fore. Not a patch on Dylan’s, but it’s always good to hear his songs done by other folk.
The last track on the album is her version of the Rolling Stones ‘Sympathy For The Devil’. Some frantic brushed drumming, piano riffing and bass playing, coupled with the slightly helium approach on the vocals make this sound a wee bit too fast. You’ll need to insert your own “woo-hoo’s” though. Points off for missing them out Sandie.
Following her success at Eurovison and beyond, Sandie was fed up at being treated like a conveyor belt pop star and saw this album as her chance of making it as a credible artist. But sadly for Sandie, Pye Records hated the album and did nothing to promote it. You can still get it, but enjoy these tracks while you can…
Bonus track not on the album. Sandie Shaw’s version of Paul McCartney’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’. You will be amazed…(apologies if you are offended)…..
Sandie Shaw’s greatest hits. Sorry.
Wayne Fontana’s mind is well and truly bent
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No downloads today, just a bit of news.
I read today that 60s pop star Wayne Fontana is off to the loony bin after he admitted setting fire to a bailiff’s car when he turned up at his house with a warrant. The Mindbenders singer (better known to his mum as Glyn Ellis) let the bailiff in, then while he was in his house, he poured petrol over the bailiff’s car. ”I’m going to burn you,” he told the bailiff. That’ll teach them to show up unannounced with a warrant. Wayne is now off to a psychiatric hospital in Manchester where he will be assessed. Not that he will need much assessing….
As you can see he turned up for court yesterday dressed as the Old Bailey’s Statue Of Justice. He carried a sword, wore a crown and a cape and wore dark glasses because he claimed that “justice is blind”. Apparently he told the judge he was just arson about with the petrol and matches.
He used to be quite normal.
I have a prize for the first person who can name me 3 Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders hits. No Googling allowed. Leave your answers in the comment box. Answers will be checked using the Guiness Book of British Hit Singles.
How High’s The Water, Mama?
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Answer? Three feet high and rising. And so, with these words, Johnny Cash named the greatest hip-hop album ever. From that album, De La Soul released arguably their best-known single, ‘The Magic Number’. Like everything else on the album, it was cut, pasted ‘n’ jigsawed together from a variety of eclectic sources. Soul, funk, country, jazz, rock, spoken word comedy. They’re all in the great melting pot of the single known as The Magic Number.
Syl Johnson ‘Different strokes’ (“Do the shangalang!”)
The Jackson 5 ‘ABC‘
Bob Dorough ‘Three Is The Magic Number’
Led Zeppelin ‘The Crunge’
Eddie Murphy ‘Anybody In The Audience Ever Get Hit By A Car?’
Johnny Cash ‘Five Feet High And Rising’
Double Dee and Steinski ‘Lesson 3 (History of Hip Hop mix)*, which itself samples;
*Schoolhouse Rocks ‘The Magic Number’
*Bill Cosby ‘Got To Have Soul’
*Putney Swope ‘Got To Have Soul’
* ……and many other records that I don’t know. I imagine De La Soul used the Double Dee record as the basis for their track, but I could be wrong.
De La Soul also remixed The Magic Number. ‘The Too Mad Mix’ isn’t essential, but worth a listen. How can you improve the original? You can’t, but here’s Jeff Buckley mucking around somewhere onstage (unknown audience recording bootleg) making a good go of Bob Dorough’s original.
If you haven’t found them already, you can also find the list of records that were used to make ‘Eye Know’ here.
Hope you’ve got your blank CDs ready after all that downloading!
Fac 8*
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After Lee Hazlewood, another maverick on the music scene is dead. Tony Wilson died yesterday despite undergoing intensive chemotherapy for cancer. He was only 57.
The story of Tony’s life and it’s many ups and downs and twists and turns can be seen in ‘24 Hour Party People’ where he is portrayed by Steve Coogan. Perhaps even better than the film is the book of the same name, from where the screenplay was adapted. Get it. Read it. Read it again. I was telling someone last week that it was ideal summer holiday reading material. Everything you would want to know about Tony Wilson, Factory Records, Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and Crispy Ambulance is in there.
Tony saw the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. 39 people in the audience went on to form bands. Step forward Bernard Sumner, Morrissey, Pete Shelley, Mick Hucknall. Sorry. Can’t have it all. Tony put the Sex Pistols on the telly. The day after it was shown Peter Hook went out and bought his first bass guitar. Years later, Tony put the Stone Roses on the telly (the Other Side of Midnight – a great programme shown in the wee small hours. That’s the Stone Roses on his programme on the inside sleeve of their first album.) The next day I went out and bought the Stone Roses first album. And formed a band. Hardly the seismic shift that the Manchester scene caused, but nonetheles…..
Tony Wilson was aloof. He was snobby. He was pretentious. He would quote Latin, he would enthuse about Greek tragedies, he would get super enthusiastic about music, about design, about getting the message across. He didn’t care that he lost money on every single copy of Blue Monday sold. It didn’t matter to him that Blue Monday went on to become the biggest selling 12″ single ever. He gave the people what they wanted, whether they realised it or not. Like Joy Division for starters. As if they’re not enough, here’s some of the other music he’s been responsible for:
New Order ‘Ceremony‘ demo. Had this for years on the ‘Western Works’ bootleg. What else do you need to know about New Order? Fac 33 was the catalogue number of the Ceremony single. Everything that Factory Records did was given a catalogue number. Fac 1? That’ll be the poster advertising the first Factory Club night in 1978. Fac 240? That’ll be the label’s 10th Anniversary wall planner. Fac 420? That’ll be ‘Yes Please’ by the Happy Mondays, the album that cost millions and finally killed the label. Crack cocaine, broken limbs, selling studio furniture. It’s all in the book. Read it. You’ll like it.
Happy Mondays ‘Freaky Dancin”. Their second single (Fac 142), the first was ‘Delightful’, (Fac 129) ‘Freaky Dancin’ was produced by Bernard Sumner. Scratchy white man funk. Still sounds great 21 (fuck me) years later.
A Certain Ratio ‘Shack Up’. (Fac 167). More scratchy white man funk. It’s a cover of an old Blue Note jazz/soul single by Banbara. Tony loved ACR until they started wearing shorts onstage. That’s in the book as well.
The Durutti Column ‘Sketches for Summer’. Tony really believed that Vini Reilly was a megastar in the making. He’s an artist I’ve always been planning to investigate but never quite got round to. He’s rake thin, weighs about 2 stone and plays fantastic guitar. In another world he might’ve been a megastar, but it’s always good to have cult heroes.
*Fac 8? That’ll be the Factory-designed menstrual egg timer. Of course.
Lee Hazlewood dies
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I heard this morning that Lee Hazlewood had died. He was 78 and had terminal cancer since last year. I can’t find any more details so far. In the meantime, let’s celebrate his life. Here’s something I posted a few months ago.
Eye Know who does the samples
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De La Soul’s ‘3 Feet High And Rising’ is my favourite hip hop album of all time. It turned this white, West of Scotland guitar playing, desert boot wearing, walking talking Morrissey haircut into a homeboy (with a quiff). I have been poking about in all the darkest corners of the internet to come up with a definitive list of samples for the record. It was released in the days before sample clearance was the law, so there’s tons of stuff on it that would never be allowed to be sampled nowadays. I’ve found a few websites that list bits and pieces of what was sampled for the album, but nothing definitive. Until next week…..
‘Eye Know’ got to number 14 in October 1989. It’s hard to believe, but the original single/album version was jigsawed together from only 6 records. That’s all. De La Soul played nothing on it. They rapped a bit, but all the music you hear was played by other people. That wouldn’t happen nowadays. Dr Dre finds his sample, sticks it on top of a crazy beat, gets Snoop Dogg to swear a bit over it and voila, another motherfuckin million seller. De La Soul cut’n’ pasted everything, and they sound 10 times funkier than everyone else.
‘Eye Know’ was put together using the following records:
The Mad Lads ‘Make This Young Lady Mine’
Steely Dan ‘Peg‘
Steely Dan ‘FM‘
Patrice Rushen ‘Remind Me’
Otis Redding ‘(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay’
Sly And The Family Stone ‘Sing A Simple Song’
Get youself Audacity, give yourself a year, and see if you can recreate this fantastic record in the comfort of your own home. I doubt it…
In the meantime, here’s the ‘Know It All’ and the ‘Daisy Bass’ remixes of Eye Know as a bonus. The start of the ‘Daisy Bass’ remix reminds me of the Happy Mondays ‘Wrote For Luck’ for some reason. Or Lil’ Louis’ French Kiss. Either way, listen and weep homeboys and girls.
