By December 1st, a lot of stores are IMPOSSIBLE to shop in, due to the OVERKILL of shitty CHRISTMAS MUSIC. I mean, SHITTY CHRISTMAS MUSIC. Isn't almost ALL of it shitty?
From Mariah Carey to Paul McCartney, singers seem to crawl up their sooty chimneys to haul out what they THINK is wonderfully cute. It's actually more like coal. More like SHIT.
You can forgive a dead fat moron like Burl Ives because "Holy Jolly Christmas" was sung at a time when the country was sappy. There were "families" back then, and everyone sat around singing rotten crap like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Things improved only slightly when "Jingle Bell Rock" arrived, but the tendency to be idiotic never left, and even the late (December 8th was the 39th anniversary) Mr. Lennon had to inflict "Happy Christmas" on it, with an all-too-familiar melody, dumb rhymes (year and fear) and Yoko trying everyone's patience.
Now that we're in the 20th Century, Christmas music is...FREE. We have idiots happily tossing entire Christmas discographies on their blogs, in forums, in secret little shoutboxes, and anywhere else. What says Christmas more than stealing holiday music? What would Jesus do? I doubt he'd say, "Thanks, Dude, you're a real SHARER, and I'm gonna LOVE playing this all Christmas day! God Bless the Internet!"
One of the dumbest excuses pinhead bloggers offer is "fair use" and "review purposes." Really? Have you noticed a film reviewer giving you a link so you can download the movie? Gosh, why is THAT? At best, you show a clip.
And here, at best, the idea is to give a few samples so you can discover an artist and then buy something. If the artist is dead, the record store owner isn't.
Continuing our theme of blondes, here's the Paris Sisters and "The Man with the Mistletoe Mustache." You can bet that at this blog, in a concession to season's gratings, would only offer an interesting-but-annoying little Christmas obscurity.
The Paris Sisters, who had a Top Ten hit in 1961, don't deserve to be as forgotten as they are. Priscilla, and older siblings Albeth and Sherrell, literally followed in the Andrews Sisters footsteps back in 1954. Their aggressive stage mother arranged a backstage meeting when the trio came to town. Patty, Maxene and Laverne actually liked the young girls and gave 'em a break…an on-stage chance to sing along with them on their hit 'Rum and Coca Cola," a plagiarized tune that would eventually be the subject of legal action.
The Paris Sisters signed with Decca that year and issued "Ooh La La." They turned up on the Imperial label in 1957, still imitating the sassy close-harmony stylings of both the Andrews and the McGuire sisters as well as The Chordettes.
It was when they signed with Gregmark in 1961, label owner Lester Sill and one of his top producers (a fellow by the name of Phil Spector) transformed the trio. If you'll pardon the term, the "zeitgeist" at the time was sugar pop; soft and sweet groups such as The Fleetwoods and the Dixie Cups would be topping the charts. The Paris Sisters scored a Top Five with "I Love How You Love Me," (music by Barry Mann, lyrics not yet by Cynthia Weil), and also did well in 1962 with the singles "He Knows I Love Him Too Much" and "What Am I to Do," also produced by Spector…who soon got involved with several more girl groups, leaving the Paris Sisters behind. (Phil's birthday comes up December 26th…get him a cake with a file in it).
"Stand Naked Clown" is just bizarre for its time, and even for now. The latter was the theme song for a short-lived TV show starring Peter Kastner about a guy who invades the kicky British fashion scene in drag. It pre-dates Lady Gaga by a generation. Kastner couldn't live it down and faded into Canadian obscurity.
Call it Diana Ross syndrome, or just common sense; Priscilla went solo in 1967. The age of the singer-songwriter had arrived, and she had enough original material for the appropriately titled "Priscilla Sings Herself." Writing to what she perceived to be her true vocal talents, there was a marked shift away from breathy intimacy and the world of Claudine Longet or Astrud Gilberto. Instead of fluff and easy listening, there was the moody "Stone is Very Very Cold" and the bombastic "message" tune "He Owns the World," two tracks that seemed to be Priscilla's bid for entering the territory of Dusty Springfield and Shirley Bassey. Hey…Dusty and Shirley didn't write their own music and lyrics…these hold up, too. But…the album didn't get the attention it deserved.
Her next album switched styles again; the Pat Boone-ish concept album "Priscilla Sings Billy." Yes, they spelled Billie Holiday's name wrong and offered middle-of-the-road interpretations of Lady Day. It didn't thrill purists who loved the original's weary jazz lilt and boozy phrasing, and it had no appeal to pop fans who didn't want to hear Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy." The middle aged white audience had no idea who she was, so would've only bought that kind of album if it was from Rosemary Clooney or Doris Day.
After her 1978 comeback attempt, "Love Is…" Priscilla suffered an accident resulting in partial facial paralysis, sidelining her music career for a number of years. By the 1990s Priscilla was again playing the occasional Parisian club date, and in the spring of 2002 she returned to the U.S. for a proposed Paris Sisters reunion concert. Sadly, nothing quite worked out for her and her sisters, and she died just two years later, on March 5, 2004, from injuries suffered in a fall at her home. She was 59. Last year, an excellent compilation album was released on the Paris Sisters featuring a lot of rarities, and "Under the Sun" has been given a Japanese CD pressing.
Your download file feature five tracks: It's My Party, Stand Naked Clown, Stone is Very Very Cold, The Man with the Mistletoe Mustache, The Ugliest Girl in Town. For those with bandwidth problems, or dodgy wi-fi, there's a one-off separate file for "He Owns the World," which you can own in less than a few minutes.
FIVE FROM PRISCILLA PARIS / PARIS SISTERS: Five Tracks including the rare GNP single
Priscilla Paris He Owns the World
It's always a pleasure to read you. You remind me Jim Goad and his Redneck Manifesto, and make no mistake it's a compliment.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned Peter Kastner. His life is actually quite bizarre. He was in a very good Canadian film "Nobody Waved Goodbye" (1964). His career plummeted, ending with that bomb TV show. He did everything from clubs to high-school teaching. He was estranged from his family for 20 years. Out of nowhere, he showed up at a reunion showing of "Nobody...", passing out leaflets telling the "...truth about...Ruth Kastner" (his mom). Apparently he began "opening up" about family incest (!?...mom??). Obviously details are scant (and his mom was dead 24 years). Very strange.
ReplyDeleteYou also dropped the name Spanky & OG. I always had a weakness for them, even though they didn't remake the world. They were discovered by Mama Cass in a club, and Cass got them signed to her label. They found this to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, there were producers around who could make them sound great. On the other hand, they were always going to be a second-string Mamas&Papas. I met Spanky at a record show (the usual autograph bit). She said "Give a Damn" was her favorite song, although that's a "politically correct" thing to say.
Thanks, and thanks. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteKastner -- it did seem like having a bomb TV show, and an embarrassing one, did him in. Somehow he struggled along, and did his own "whatever became of" to get the demons out. Sad story. The show wasn't THAT bad. It was the era of wacko ideas, from "Second Hundred Years" to "My Mother the Car." Lots of shows failed, and Glynis Johns, Juliet Prowse, John Mills, Imogene Coca, Burl Ives and others suffered the quick ax. Of course they were all established stars who could recover from a stumble. But even Wayne Maunder ("Custer") survived, and got a second chance with "Lancer." He eventually announced he didn't want fan attention anymore but disappeared into more comfortable obscurity.
Spanky -- I do remember them in choir robes singing "Give a Damn," which I agree was their best, although "Sunday Will Never Be The Same" showed off Spanky's great voice. They did avoid being the white "Fifth Dimension," but yeah, the Mamas and the Papas were a hard act to follow or compete with.