Friday, May 29, 2020

The Ghostly Moon Martin - Dead at 74



It’s hard to resist some kind of stupid tag line related to John Martin’s nickname. After all, he earned it by writing songs that referenced the moon, even if he never had a hit song doing it (like “Only a Paper Moon”) or had the audacity to actually rhyme moon and June, (as Keith Reid did in “A Salty Dog.”) If one was known for bad taste (and no, this blogger isn’t QUITE), the line would’ve been “The Eclipse of Moon…”

Actually “ghostly” fits better, because Martin was an enigma to most of his fans. Magazines rarely seemed to profile him, and his record label's bio kept even common details about his life a mystery. Even his age was a secret until the end, and even after. Most obits listed his age as 69. Actually, he lied by five years; he was 74 when he died.

His look was pale and haunted, and it befit the title of his first album “Shots from a Cold Nightmare.” He looked like something one of Jimmy Savile’s victims probably still sees in her nightmares…a long-faced, solemn, pale creature with weedy blond hair. There’s nothing, fortunately, to suggest that Moon Martin was as creepy as Savile, but spooky? You bet. His voice was high and faded, and he was fairly bloodless in his videos.



    The Oklahoma-born songwriter wasn’t initially a singer. I checked what’s available on the early bands he was with, including Southwind, and no, he played guitar and that was it. He worked as a session guitarist on Bridget St. John’s 1969 album “Ask Me No Questions” and Linda Ronstadt’s “Silk Purse” in 1969 and her 1971 self-titled album. He was on “Ululu” from Jesse Ed Davis in 1972. How he transitioned into lead vocals, and managed to get signed to Capitol, I have no idea. I have a bunch of publicity releases from Capitol that were sent to disc jockeys and music editors/writers and they tend to focus on what’s on the albums and not any bio material on Martin.

At Capitol, they were selling his music as a new wave version of 50’s rock of the Chuck Berry variety. “Rolene” and “Cadillac Walk” seemed to be in a parallel universe to Chuck’s “Maybelline” and other odes to cars and women…just deadened and whitened. “Rolene” was a Top 30 hit on his “Escape from Domination” album, and his label was gratified to see him headline in Europe and open for Cheap Trick in America. Having spawned two cover hits from his first album (via Mink DeVille ("Cadillac Walk") and Robert Palmer ("Bad Case of Loving You") and seeing him at least get into the charts on his own via "Rolene" and "No Chance," Capitol took a chance and re-signed Martin for another two-album deal.



They seemed to be pleased to keep Moon Martin a mysterious figure, too. The “Street Fever” press kit didn’t include info on Moon’s private life and interests. The opening line for the “Media Information” sheet that accompanied “Mystery Ticket” was deliberately vague: “Romance and intrigue - your mystery ticket into the shadowy world of Moon Martin, whose lyrical vignettes evoke provocative universal imagery.” Oh. Ok.

Martin’s lifeless singing on “Victim of Romance” (he definitely sounded like a victim, drained of blood) didn't get much airplay, but cover versions helped...impassioned vocals by Michelle Phillips and Lisa Burns (and “Je Suis Victime de l’Amour” from Johnny Hallyday). 

Among other interesting cover versions of Moon Martin songs: “Paid the Price” by Nick Lowe (on “Abominable Showman”), “I’ve Got a Reason” by Rachel Sweet (on “Protect the Innocent”), “My Eye On You” (co-written with Bill House) by Bette Midler on “No Frills,” “She’s Made a Fool Of You” by The Searchers (on “Love’s Melodies”), and “Bad Case of Loving You” by Koko Taylor on “Force of Nature.”

Cover versions helped Martin's bank account, but fans of ill music preferred Moon Martin’s own versions,  and the eerie somnambulistic Dr. Caligari-like musical landscape he created on his very black vinyl. The MTV generation glimpsed him briefly on “X-Ray Vision,” a pulsating, menacing little number that was given a fairly limp and enigmatic visualization where Moon was on a train, some kind of Disorient express....then running down alleys, getting strapped down by a mad interrogator, and...oh, but it was all a dream. Or was it? In his prime, as Capitol publicity noted, he was popular in Italy, Germany and other European countries (more than in America).

The better vintage clips on him seem to be from German TV. Capitol noted in promoting “Mystery Ticket,” that his previous, third album (“Street Fever”) did very well overseas, and it “firmly established Moon as a recording atist of major import in Europe. In France, for example, the single ‘Bad News” enjoyed a run of ore than 20 weeks in the Top 10 on the radio charts. New markets such as Italy and Spain caught “Street Fever,” and chart success in Australia indicdated fans were also jumping on the Moon bandwagon Down Under.” Capitol had every reason to figure the second album in their contract would also do well. Robert Palmer was producing (Andrew Gold also produced a cut) and Martin had managed to become the opening act for some American dates by Nick Lowe’s Rockpile.

What turned out to be the last Capitol album, “Mystery Ticket,” was, as usual, loaded with menacing, dark songs of misery, despair and heartbreak. Fulfilling his chosen nickname-first name, several had moon rhymes. From “Deeper Into Love” — “I raise the curtain to the moon. I see her eyes calling Johnny take me soon.” From “Chain Reaction” — “I fee a heartbreak comin’ on soon. Shadows fallin’ on the moon.” And from “Paid the Price” — “Dark night, dark moon. It came on so soon. I paid the price lovin’ you.” Hmm, no, it wouldn’t have been the same if he’d been called “Soon Martin.”

One song, a co-write with Jude Cole, had a faint touch if humor to it: “She’s in love with my car…she sure ain’t in love with me.” As for the hard-driving, symphonic disaster “X-Ray Vision,” that was actually another rare co-write. It was actually handed to him fairly complete by the Team of Pete Sinfield (the King Crimson lyricist) and Terry Taylor:

“For two or thee years, I had been playing around with the title “X-Ray Vision” for a song, but I couldn’t come up with any story I liked. Then, when I was doing my last European tour, Pete Sinfield and Terry Taylor approached me with a song called, of all things, “X-Ray Vision.” All I had to do was slightly alter the lyrics to make it more consistent with my other tunes, and make minor arrangements changes.”

From there, Moon Martin seemed to take almost a decade off, and re-surfaced on indie labels. He turned up at small venues where camcorder footage shows him to have remained totally stoic and disconnected from whatever audience was or wasn’t paying attention. He looked the same as ever, which at this point might suggest to people a strange cross between Jimmy Savile and Andy Dick.



(When Capitol was sending me Martin albums, I’d never heard of Savile, and Andy Dick wasn’t old enough to buy booze and become drunk and annoying in a bar). However, with more normal hair and in a better mood, he looked and acted far less spooky in the rare interview you can access below.



Like Keith Reid, it turned out that when he wasn’t being elusive, he could almost seem friendly; detached but at least communicative. Actually some of his mannerisms seem a bit similar to Woody Allen’s (Woody in real life, not doing the fake pausing, halting and head shaking).

A friend of Moon's, Sean Householder, gave an insight on his last days, posting it on something called Celebrity Access: "He was 74 years old, and he had become a little frail over the last few years…He went to sleep in a big easy chair in his living room with a book in his hand, a blanket in his lap, and a little glass of Coke on the nightstand next to him. He left this world as peacefully as anybody could ever hope to."

The download:



ILL WOMEN -- A TOP 20 ZIP FILE FOR A QUICK DOWNLOAD


    Sometimes a file here stops working for some weird reason or other, and/or some people may be in a part of the world where they can’t access my server for downloads.

    Some find it it tedious to download one song at a time. So…here’s a Zippyshare zip file Top 20, featuring some memorable or just weird female performers who have been profiled on the blog.  No, none of 'em are THESE broads:



1.    Everything I’ve Got - HONOR BLACKMAN
2.    Tom Dooley - TAMMY GRIMES
3.    Good Lovin’ - JANE MORGAN
4.     Tschitschibum - TRUDE HERR
5.    I Don’t - DANIELLE PECK
6.    Pretty Purple Panties - JUDE KASTLE
7.    Stay As Sick as You Are - KATIE LEE
8.    Lay Me Like a Lady - JENNY DARREN
9.    Pinky the Penguin - CONNIE FRANCIS
10.    Killing Me Softly With His Song - LORI LIEBERMAN
11.    Da Doo Rendezvous - VALERIE CARTER
12.    Pussy X - KAS PRODUCT
13.    Son of a Preacher Man - NICOLETTA
14.    Tower of Strength - PEARL BAILEY
15.    They Didn’t Believe Me - LOLA ALBRIGHT
16.    L. David Sloane - KAY GARNER
17.    I Get Along Without You Very Well - BEA WAIN
18.    Boy (Girl) - SUSAN SMITH
19.    Sur un prélude de Bach - MAURANE
20.    If You Want it Easy - PATTI DAHLSTROM


20 ILL WOMEN via ZIP

TISH...THAT'S FRENCH! Hot songs & cover versions sung in the language of love....

 

Here's a lot of French-singing ladies from Canada, France and Europe. It's a pretty smooth and lush collection. No distracting ye-ye girls, no punque babes, not even the gurgling trill of Piaf or the high-pitched chirping of the late (as of a few days ago, at the age of 103) Lily Lian.

Below is mostly an assortment of oddities and lovely and sexy obscurities. Most all qualify for the Ill Folks blog because they may be hugely famous in French-speaking nations, but are mostly unknown to English-speakers. All will sound fine, however, played through German speakers on a device made in Japan, or whatever your set-up happens to be.

Pardon the digression (you don't have to read it) but...it's quite sad (QUE LASTIMA!) that FRENCH, once considered the language of love, and also the language of diplomacy, is now hardly taught in schools anywhere but in France. Or maybe Belgium. The United States is now practically bilingual -- with SPANISH the intrusion. Dial up a government agency or a big business or institution of any kind, OR, get a recorded message from one, and you'll likely hear "For English, press one, para ESPANOL, dos!"

The reason is simple. Overpopulation. Also, unlike every other group of immigrants who came to America, the Latinos don't give a fucko about speaking English, and know that they can now get away with NOT bothering. As in, "If you want to watch this boxing match with a Spanish translation, use the SAP channel..." And here's subtitles en Espanol. And anyone who is getting a headache from this shit, cierra la boca. If you don't, you'll have the same fate as lawyer Aaron Schlossberg, who got picketed at his home and kicked out of his office for grumbling at Spanish speakers at a restaurant. 

No doubt in the U.K. soon, the bilingual language will be Arabic. There was a time when people who immigrated learned the language and customs of the host country. That's not the case anymore, and guess what, all it's done is push us farther apart, as speakers of foreign languages keep to themselves and plot to themselves. CAPISCE?? 

What's in the zip file...

1. Carole Laure. Nyuk, a Canuck. "Save The Last Dance for Me" in French. This sexy actress began recording in the 70's, so her albums aren't ancient volumes of forgotten Laure.

2. Francine Laine. Not named after Frankie. Have you ever had a French girl talking urgently and emotionally to you? Me neither. This may fulfill your fantasies: "Moi Sensuelle." Your imagination may be better than the real lyrics.

3. Annie Villeneuve. "Tomber a l'eau." I was drawn to any song with "Tomber" in it, till I learned it has nothing to do with tombs. Catchy power pop from a Canadian who'll make you want to go over the border.

4. Julie. Why go by one name? It makes an Internet search impossible. I found this on a compilation lp of French hits. "Maria Magdalene" may be a religious tune but it has a nice bossa nova rhythm to it. It also has a timeless quality. Meaning, I don't know when it was recorded.

5. Marie LaForet. "Marie Douceur (Paint it Black)." In the 60's she was a stunner, the kind you'd buy just for the album cover. And yes, she could sing, too. This is one of her most passionate cover versions.

6. Nicole Rieu. "Have You Never Been Mellow" in French? "Me Maison Au Bord de L'eau"

7. Dalida sang in many languages, often in French. The selected tune, a polished Abba-esque commercial pop piece, will get you bouncing your baguette. The song is "Mourir su scene." I was surprised at how catchy-happy the song was, since I thought "Mourir" might have to do with mourning, or being morbid in some way. OK, she died too young, and by suicide; that's morbid.


8. Jane Birkin. "Le Sex Shop." She joins Serge Gainsbourg again. You know their more obvious and orgasmic hit single (which is on the blog in the Bardot version, elsewhere). This one ended a film's humorous if slightly melancholy look at a guy's brief entry into the skin trade.

9. Zizi Jeanmaire. A legendary old broad. This is a Serge Gainsbourg song nastily called "Merde a l'amour," and it's sung in a vaudevillian way. You can just imagine the visual, a cakewalk on a street full of dog poop. Or am I romanticizing?

10. Maurane. No, that isn't a weather forecast, that's this Belgium star's name. "Prelude de Bach" takes the familiar tune into lush territory (ie, a saloon where a lush will drink and sob imagining his own sad translation).

11. Monique Gaube. "To Sir With Love" in French. You'd take a French lesson from this teacher.

12. Christien Pilzer. "Dracula." This was 40 years ago. Why she was singing about le vampire is probably a buried secret by now.

13. France Gall. "Resiste." Do you have the gall to resist a woman who is such a credit to France?

14. Veronique Sanson. "Longue Distance." Like Carly or Joni in the 70's and 80's, Vero was a superstar in France during those decades, and is still a legend. Her great melodies were spiced with Island rhythms at times. In America she's vaguely known as "wasn't she married to Stephen Stills? Mom of Chris?"

15. Sandrine Kiberlain. "Le quotid." This heartbreaker also starred in the cult film "Monsieur Hire" as, what else, a heartbreaker. The film's moody, erotic and depressing. Her songs are mostly erotic.

16. Mylene Farmer. "L'amour n'est rien." She took her last name as an homage to Frances Farmer. She's written a song about Edgar A. Poe. Her videos are strange, erotic, and often gothic. I could write endlessly about her, with a pen dipped in blood. She's sometimes foolishly called "the Madonna of France" for her popularity among gays and her flirtations with dance music and dopey background dances doing their ridiculous aerobics routines. Despite duets with Moby, Sting, and some Dylan-haired lesbo (she even got on puppy Fallon's show with Sting) she's not cracked the English-speaking markets. 

17. Francoise Hardy. "Tant de belles choses." The trifecta of French pop superstars
would be Francoise, Veronique and Mylene over the past 40 years. They overlap, and if you're listening or watching them, you'd overlap, too.

18. Julie Zenatti. "Toutes Les Couleurs." We end with some sweet French pastry...the translation is simple enough: "All the Colors."

THAT'S FRENCH!

 

Saturday, May 09, 2020

"FOOD AROUND THE CORNER" Sara Berner



In the pre-VHS and pre-Internet days, if you liked a song, you went to a store and bought it. Simple.

Except not every song made it to vinyl (or shellac). This seemed to be especially true of music used in cartoons. An example, above (and in soundtrack mp3 form below) is "Food Around the Corner," an ultra-catchy number sung by a hillbilly flea. The flea was played by one of the more obscure names in the world of novelty vocals, Sara Berner. Most who care about such things know who June Foray is. Sara? Not so much. One problem was contractual: aside from Mel Blanc, almost NOBODY got a voice credit for a Warner Bros. cartoon. She was not credited whether she was a flea or a buzzad (she was Mama Buzzard in some cartoons in which she groused at her dopey bashful son, who said little beyond "Oh, nope nope nope...") Sara supplied all the female voices for the Warner Bros. classic "Hollywood Steps Out," including Greta Garbo, Ann Sheridan and Dorothy Lamour.

You can hear Sara Berner on a few singles known to Demento-types, but usually she's the co-star. She's with Dave Barry on "Out Of This World With Flying Saucers" and with Paul Frees on the Spike Jones classic "Too Young." She did get to solo for a Spike Jones parody of Patti Page's "Tennessee Waltz." Mostly she's on the soundtrack of some cult-favorite cartoons, from the Warner Bros. "An Itch In Time" to Tex Avery's "The Hick Chick" and a variety of items for MGM and Walter Lantz, sometimes voicing Andy Panda and Jerry the mouse. She was on the Roy Rogers radio show doing voices, and fans could actually see her once in a while on Jack Benny's TV show. She very briefly had her own radio show, "Sara's Private Eye File." Fans point to her brief role as a neighbor in the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Rear Window." Hitch also used her to voice a phone operator in "North By Northwest."

Born in Albany, New York (January 12, 1912), she blossomed as a radio actress and voiceover specialist in the in the 40's. Ethnic comedy was still big at the time, and radio included such dialect specialists as Bert Gordon ("The Mad Russian") and Harry Einstein ("Parkyakarkus") and of course, Freeman and Gosden as Amos and Andy. Fred Allen's "Alley" included "Mrs. Nussbaum" while Jack Benny sometimes featured "Mr. Kitzel," who spoke in a wimpy Jewish accent. Fred Allen also gave the world "Senator Claghorn" (imitated by Mel Blanc in cartoons as Foghorn Leghorn) but actually ran afoul of the PC patrol with "Ajax Cassidy" as played by Peter Donald. This was a bit of an irony, as Fred Allen himself was Irish (real last name, Sullivan). Virginia MacPherson, a UP syndicated writer, profiled Sara for being able to do 13 different voices...including the Italian "Mrs. Mataratza" for Jimmy Durante, "Helen Wilson" for the Amos and Andy Show, "Chiquita" opposite Gene Autry, and even Eddie Cantor's wife Ida. "Sara can switch her tonsil tones from Greek to Polish to French without a quiver," enthused UP, but Sara admitted she had gotten into trouble for all the ethnicity, and "my dialects being in bad taste." She defended herself for being on the Amos and Andy show: "They laugh with Negroes, not at them. And that's the secret with dialects. You have to do them sympathetically. Otherwise they can cause trouble."

She was briefly famous enough for Ralph Edwards to surprise her on "This is Your Life" (1952). Quoth Ralph: “This is a story of courage and comedy, and the tears behind that comedy. How many of you really know Sara Berner — the ‘Laugh, Clown, Laugh’ girl — the girl who dreamed of stardom but settled for supporting roles?” Spike Jones turned up. Jack Benny literally phoned it in. Sara, who played phone operator Mabel Flapsaddle on Jack's show, was replaced in 1954 by Shirley Mitchell. Just what Jack's beef with Sara was, nobody seems to know, but she had worse problems...separation from her husband Milton Rosner, who was also her agent. Things got progressively worse, till she made headlines for phoning a police station and asking for protection. She said Rosner wanted to kill her. The police came over...and ended up arresting Sara instead. Apparently they found too many bottles strewn around her place, and Sara was too manic in her ravings about her ex, and her 7 year-old daughter seemed to be neglected. She didn't turn up in court, and ended up hospitalized. She was released a short time later, but she had difficulty resuming any kind of career. She died December 19, 1969. It took a while to settle her estate...and sell off anything she owned.  The details were advertised in the local paper: "Sunday Nov 14, 1971, 2pm, rain or shine...the priceless personal possessions of Sara Berner, Deceased Star of Screen, Radio and Television...REFRESHMENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE...."

In the 60's, while Sara was unable to get much work, a whole new bunch of cartoon voices were thrilling TV audiences, and if they wanted souvenirs on vinyl, they could get them. There were singles offering songs sung by Yogi Bear, or Rocky and Bullwinkle, and even long play albums on major labels. Colpix had made-for-vinyl items like "The Treasure of Sarah's Mattress" featuring Quick Draw McGraw, Baba Looey and friends. Some albums even collected the few novelty items that Mel Blanc recorded as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. But...even now, the only way you can hear "Food Around the Corner" is from the original soundtrack complete with sound effects. And not on vinyl or CD, just here, on mp3: