"THESE GHOULISH THINGS" remind me of FAY DEWITT

 

Fay Dewitt’s “THROUGH SICK AND SIN” album arrived in 1961, at a time when there was great interest in edgy comedy, black (meaning darkly satiric) humor and sick comedy. The cover's odd humor seems to involve Fay not believing an apple a day should keep the doctor away. Maybe you hadda be there.

At the time, Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman, and Jonathan Winters were all accused of crude and weird joking. Time magazine sounded the alarm with an article on the "sick comedy" trend. Tasteless remarks was something Time could not tolerate... although they did refer to Shelley Berman's face as looking "like a hastily sculptured meatball."

Tom Lehrer was the star of poor taste songs, but alarmed critics were noticing that chi-chi clubs and revues were beginning to load up on questionable songs about cocaine, Lizzie Borden and double entendres below Cole Porter's belt. When you couldn't trust Hermoine Gingold or a Julius Monk revue to maintain a wholesome standard, something was wrong! But....selling.

Major record labels began to take interest. Berman and Winters were on Verve, and Columbia signed Paul Lynde to be their sick comedy star. Warners tested the sea-sick waters with a tepid album of risque songs performed by Joan Barton (who was not exactly competition for Ruth Wallis, Faye Richmonde or Rusty Warren). Epic likewise gave the genre a try with the provocatively titled "Sick and Sin" album, although few tracks were all that sick, and there was nothing "sinful" that would cause anyone to blush.

"These Ghoulish Things," not to be confused with the parody on "These Foolish Things" that appears on Sheldon Alllman's 'Sing Along with Drac" album, is by David Rogers and Mark Bucci, who wrote the score for "Cheaper By the Dozen." 

Fay is 85, still ready for work singing in cabaret or acting in sitcoms, and has a long, long resume that includes a variety of classic TV shows, including "Car 54," "McHale's Navy," "The Farmer's Daughter," "That Girl," "Gomer Pyle," "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons," "Mork and Mindy," "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," and "Good Samaritans," all done after this album arrived. 

Fay's impressive stage and film credits go back to 1950 when she was in "Pardon Our French" with Olsen and Johnson, and 1951's infamous "Flahooley" with Irwin Corey. She recorded several "straight" singles on labels including GNP, Mood and Leeds. In the world of fanboy geeks and perverse trivia fans, she is known for being one of the few celebrities who killed somebody. In her case, it was her violent husband. They had divorced, but in a drunken rage he broke into her place and began beating her. She grabbed for a letter opener and fatally stabbed him in self-defense. This ghoulish thing seems to have endeared her to fame-fans who haven't heard her sing and perhaps haven't connected her to any of her vast variety of roles, which includes parts in Don Knotts movies, and in everything from "House" to "Murder She Wrote."

THESE GHOULISH THINGS - listen or download via Mega

"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:

https://app.box.com/s/sw3711rvttcqa9m7fxo14zgozyhcl8px

"Lay Me Like a Lady" vs Getting SCREWED. Jenny Darren, people don't PAY. They like FREEEEEEEE.

It was kinda ironic, listening to Jenny Darren's "LAY ME LIKE A LADY." The sexy sweaty brawling blues-rock chorus seemed like a shout-out to rough sex. I mean, what LADY even uses the term "LAY ME?" 

Her tune first turned up as a UK single in 1975, and Americans got it as the closing track to her debut album in the USA. A less amusing irony for Jenny Darren is that 45 years later, and nobody buys physical albums on vinyl or CD, and few even pay for a download version of one. And SHE could hardly find 50 people to "support" the musical merch she was trying to sell. 

Anybody buying THIS album off somebody on eBay for even a dollar? Forget the bullshit about "vinyl is making a comeback" just because a few trendy Millennials want to brag that they spent way too much for a limited pressing on "record store day." It's hard to even find a record store, and most of you probably don't even know Jenny Darren had something to sell, and that goes for Wendy James having something to sell, or Genya Ravan having a new album, or Fanny having a new album or Raun MacKinnon, and it's not just the "old" artists struggling. It's even worse for new ones.  

Christ. I was one of those people hunting the record stores every week, and throwing down bucks taking a chance on artists whose albums LOOKED like they might be good. Today's "music fan" just goes to shoutboxes, blogs, forums and torrents sucking and sucking anything free on Zippyshare, and then crying "anybody have..." for something a bit esoteric or indie. Who makes money? Zippyshare. And a few nefarious bloggers who use premium services because they feel THEY should be paid for THEIR hard work. That's how they justify their exystence. Er, existence. Ha ha.  

Back to JENNY....

What DO you do if you are an artist and you want to be "SUPPORTED" with your new music, or the good stuff you've done over the years? You put a few samples on YouTube or Spotify that get you nowhere. You "network" by pestering people you don't know via Twitter or Facebook until they block you. If you're a Jenny Darren and have some minor name-recognition and some die-hard fans who still care, and could possibly get some new listeners who want to hear a real woman instead of a twit like Taylor...you hope and pray that you get found on FACEBOOK.

Uh, not exactly the BEST paradigm. See for yourself, as Jenny admits that 50 Jenny Darren Fans Can't...be found. 

Jenny is far from alone. A post like this could be done on Wendy James or dozens and dozens of others, both older talents who have credits, and newcomers who are very talented only nobody knows it and nobody ever will, and all they hear is "don't quit your day job..." followed by "why not put ALL your music on Spotify and YouTube and have FREE DOWNLOADS on that website you pay so much money a month for?" 

At one time, the spin of the stealer’s wheel…ie, the EXCUSE given by bloggers who “share” entire album and discographies “for fun,” was: “get a new paradigm. WE think MUSIC should be FREE, and copyright is COPY WRONG!” 

Some shrug and see artists should give away the music and make money selling t-shirts or hats. Yeah? How many hats and t-shirts does anyone wear? The average music blogger asshole from Holland, Sweden, Brazil or Redneck USA wears the same one stinking t-shirt every day. That's the one who thinks he's "kewl" with his daily uploads of whole discographies and albums...the one who never gets laid obviously....the one who grunts "if you like it, buy it," and then demands thanks for giving way somebody else's work. Why not be a fucking Robin Hood and shoplift food from Tesco or Walmart and give it to the needy? Oh, right, you might be caught. It's easier to prey on artists who can't spend all day finding every sneaky hidden link on a blog, and then leaving a "please, please" asking for the stealing to stop. 

Some figure that big artists (Elton, Macca, etc.) don't need the money. But those guys are often funding the newcomers that get signed to their record labels. The less albums they sell, the less chance thee is for the new artists to get promoted. Also, not every artist is as ego-driven as Elton and Macca. Some are offended and depressed that their new albums aren't selling in the same quantities as they used to.

Steve Miller and Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell and similar artists find it too humiliating to get low sales, and their dignity is hurt when they don't even get a decent royalty check from Spotify or YouTube for "streaming" plays. The "new paradigm" was SUPPOSED to be getting paid for having your music "streamed" rather than downloaded. Ha ha. Ho ho. Hee hee. As for more cult-oriented acts, like Genya Ravan, Fanny, Gunhill Road etc. etc., even if they Facebook constantly, few even know they've got new product and all you have to do is find it on YouTube. Nah. You may have noticed how many items on YouTube have an abominably LOW number of views.

NICE goin' Pablo. You upped Jenny Darren's "HEARTBREAKER" and less than 150 have listened: 

Jenny was the first to cover "Heartbreaker." The guy who wrote it wrote several songs on her "Queen of Fools" album, including the closing track, "Lay Me Like a Lady," which had been a 1975 single released on a division of Decca but with a "safe" re-titling so that radio station managers might let it slide....

Jenny's "Heartbreaker" did nothing in the UK in September of 1978. Pat Benatar pushed it just inside the top 20 (Cashbox) and just outside it at #23 (Billboard) in October of 1979.  Benatar followed it with “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” in the summer of 1980. In the summer of 1980, Jenny Darren got one more chance with DJM, releasing a single called “Lover.” It went un-loved. And nearly 40 years later, her pretending to be an amateur and an appearance on "Britain's Got Talent" did little except get her some extra Facebook friends and followers who expected her to post photos and music FREE. 

Giving a sample song for free is one thing. But the thing now, is to give it all away. This kind of slut logic does not lead to respect. It has no dignity. It's no way to make a living. 

“Lay Me Like a Lady,” which opens meekly, like a Juice Newton country-rock ballad, but then goes all Genya, or Elkie, with white-hot white-soul raving.

LAY ME LIKE A LADY --- Download or listen online. No password. No demand for Paypal donations. No "I should be paid" link to a PAY server. No Russian spyware shit.

The Last Time we Saw Jenny Darren (on the crooked faux-amateur BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT) + RAY JESSEL

Last time the general public saw Jenny Darren perform, it was on "Britain's Got Talent," the show that conspires with professionals to pretend they're "amateurs" getting a dream chance to perform in public. 

The all-too-familiar scam has Simon Cowell, tongue-in-cheek, say "go on, this is your chance, let's see what you can do," to somebody who has already had a record deal, or been playing Vegas, or is making a comfy living on cruise ships. Simon is so corrupt, he's even greeted contestants on "America's Got Talent" as strangers...when they ALREADY appeared on "Britain's Got Talent." (A glaring example being Stevie Starr the "Regurgitator," who I remember seeing in Montreal in the late 80's when he was on the comedy club circuit.)

There was even the un-Godly case of a priest called “Father Ray Kelly” who was brought out as a modest amateur. After the audience went wild for him, the tabloids gleefully pointed out he’d been signed to a major label only a few years earlier! He was on the same show as...yes...Jenny Darren. In the clip below, you can see him backstage with Jenny, acting like a nervous newcomer. 

Just as Stevie Starr was familiar to me when he modestly walked onto the "Got Talent" stage, the name "Jenny Darren" struck a rockin' bell as soon as it was flashed on the screen. Jenny Darren? The 70's rival to Elkie Brooks and Genya Ravan? She'd have to be...

When asked her age, she admitted to 68. Asked what she did for a living, Jenny said “I’m retired.” She did NOT say “I used to be a rock singer, signed with DJM, and I made several albums and issued a handful of singles.” The judges...all fine actors and actresses...pretended this elderly“retiree” in the dowdy outfit would be a quick buzz, and not another Susan Boyle or Janey Cutler. 

WOO HOO! Jenny stripped down to biker-leather and started to sing as passionately as old Tina Turner or old Tom Jones!  Want to see for yourself? Take a look at the bullshit set-up, the goggle-eyed “surprised” looks from the judges and the fake-o reaction shots from audience members which were no doubt spliced in. Why do I say spliced in? 

I’ve been at tapings of "Got Talent, and the warm-up guy actually told us, “We’re going to have cameras zero in on various audience members, and sections…to get reaction shots. We do this now when the lighting is good. So let’s get started…when I say three, I want you to all look SHOCKED like you’ve just seen something amazing…great…now when I count to three, I want you to all start LAUGHING, as if you heard the funniest joke...” 

Be one of the TWO MILLION who have seen Jenny on the show...and be one of the TWO MILLION who never bought a song from her and never "supported" her when she managed to book herself into some small local club with cheap admission (or maybe none at all, just please buy a drink). 

Gotta admit, Jenny Darren sounded great, didn’t she? 

It would be naive to expect that she would've signed a record deal off this splashy performance, or that if she did, ANYBODY would actually BUY the CD. Quite a few "Got Talent" winners got a CD deal and were dropped after one release, and many others only self-made discs to sell on their websites...with few bothering. After all, with so much FREE music being given away on the Internet, why spend money that could go to beer and chips, which can't be downloaded? Besides, surely in a forum or a shoutbox, some "kind soul" will answer the "anybody got" request. "Anybody got Jenny Darren stuff? I'm interested, but not enough to simply go on eBay or Amazon and buy. Not even a used copy where the seller runs a charity shop." 

Jenny was put through to the next round but...was kicked off "Britain's Got Talent" when the ever PC tabloids began snooping her on social media and discovered she "liked" some un-PC things on Twitter, and apparently wrote a few anti-semitic things on Facebook. The chaste tabloids refused to quote any of it (unlike, say, Tyson Fury's anti-semitic ravings which never caused a boxing match to be canceled). But really, it doesn't take much for the villagers with their torches to burn down somebody's career and extinguish their hopes. 

Another example? Here you go. Ray Jessel, who, like Jenny Darren, was presented to the public as an elderly, eccentric amateur instead of a longtime PROFESSIONAL. Before he takes the stage, he admits, vaguely, "I only started performing when I was 72." But doesn't mention that he was a successful songwriter and comedy writer -- from the Broadway musical "Baker Street" (with Fritz Weaver as Sherlock Holmes) to the Smothers Brothers, "Love Boat," and the Carol Burnett show, to songs on CDs from Michael Feinstein, etc. etc. 

 What happened to the whimsical-looking Mr. Jessel? 

He sang a novelty tune “What She’s Got” (aka “The Penis Song” aka “She’s Got a Penis.”) It was a simple yock about how he began dating a “woman” who turned out to be a man and guess what, “her penis is bigger than mine!” 

Everybody laughed and the judges happily passed him on to the next round…but overnight the P.C. brigade decided old Ray was homophobic, and being mean to the transgender community for joking about NOT wanting to date a chick with a dick. Oooh. So Jessel was OUT. Instead of a record deal or a chance to play Vegas, the next few months were nothing but some local bookings in California, and flying halfway around the world for the Adelaid Cabaret Festival in Australia. Then he dropped dead.

What was that tune? "VIdeo Killed the Radio Star." Yeah? The Internet has killed just about every music star...aside from rappers, boy band idiots, overtly gay cretins like Sam Smith, obese clods like Adele, and the usual parade of slutty tarts who people want to see in person hoping for a wardrobe malfunction (intentional though it may be). Why go to shows when you can see the live performances on YouTube free? Why buy the music when "cool" bloggers and shoutbox denizens with Banksy-type idiot names will happily toss the shit to ya for a "nice" comment in return? 

The problem with NOT supporting the artists is that eventually there ARE NONE. There's no wailin' Jenny Darren, and no funny Ray Jessel, that's for sure...there's predictable sound-alike pop-rap from Taylor or Miley, and monotonous cursing and whining from Jeezy or Jay-Z or Nipsey or B.I.G. or whoever hasn't been shot. The music industry IS dead; it's now just a zombie landscape with few record labels, thousands of people paying for indie CDs that don't sell, and millions offering their music on YouTube to people who will never find it because everyone can stuff their eyes and ears with audio and video bootlegs of the big stars who can afford to let the parasites steal from them. Some "cool" dudes write, "no copyright abuse intended," ha ha. Others say, "if a rights owner wants a take down, just ask," only a rights owner would be spending every second, nine to five, finding every sneak and trying to get a desist instead of a re-up. 

Jenny Darren would like to still perform, and still have the satisfaction of releasing music before she's called away to meet Ray Jessel. The reply is, what, "too bad, times have changed?" Yep. And you can get "The Time's They are a Changin'" on a free download with just a quick Google. Because Google, who make a million every day, and are the owners of YouTube and Blogspot, are your FRIEND. They just aren't the friends of artists trying to make a living.

POOR MARIE - Nick Lowe and the ANNOTATED MARIE PROVOST (Prevost)

She wasn't "born yesterday." Well, actually she was: November 8, 1896. 

Popular enough, in her day, to be on a collector card, Marie Prevost is now better known as "MARIE PROVOST" via a Nick Lowe song based on a story in Kenneth Anger's book "Hollywood Babylon." 

Nick was intrigued by Anger's assertion that Marie, drunk and down-and-out, had a fatal collapse alone at home and became "the doggie's dinner," chunks of her missing down the throat of her pet. 

According to Nick's girlfriend at the time, Lowe spent hours and hours and hours working on his snickery bit of black humor, perfecting the lyrics. Since Nick was known to take a drink, is it a surprise that most of the lyrics are fiction, not fact? After all, the only facts he could go on (this was before the Internet) were the few in Anger's admittedly "gossip" loaded book. Much of what Anger wrote about had an arch, campy tone to it. "It was said..." "we all heard..." 

What was the karma here? Well, I hung out with Nick, just the two of us, for an hour, back when he was still on Columbia, and he was complaining about all the jerks coming up to him telling him disgusting anecdotes and offering gruesome song ideas...all because of "Marie Provost," and another song that mentioned a kid cutting off his right arm. 

Let's take a look at Nick's lyrics and the facts. 

Marie Provost did not look her best
The day the cops bust into her lonely nest

["Marie Prevost" is the right spelling. The cops did not “bust” into her lonely nest. A busboy named William Bogle let himself in, after getting the pass key from apartment manager Henrietta Jenks. Neighbors had complained about Marie’s dog barking. Bogle confirmed for the L.A. Times that he had seen Marie alive and well a few days before ]

In the cheap hotel up
On Hollywood West July 29

[Marie lived in an apartment called The Aftonian and it’s still standing. On Hollywood West? Fanboys and tourists sometimes wander by to see it: 6230 Afton Place, Hollywood, off Vine. The incident happened not in July but in January. The body was found January 25th.]

She'd been lyin' there
For two or three weeks


[Her body was found on a Monday (January 25th, 1937). She was last seen the previous Wednesday when William Bogle did his weekly apartment cleaning.  That means she had been dead a few days, not two or three weeks.]

The neighbors said
They never heard a squeak

[The neighbors heard her dog barking, and the coroner said she had died January 23rd, only two days earlier. Prevost was aware of her neighbors disliking her noisy dog, and posted a notice on her door: “Please do not knock on the door more than once. It makes my dog bark. If I am in I will hear you as I am not deaf.”]

For hungry eyes that could not speak
Said even little doggies have got to eat
She was winner
The became the doggie's dinner

[The L.A. Times reported: “Apparently dead two days, her body was found clothed and face down on a folding bed. Whining at the bedside was her pet dachshund, Maxie, and teeth marks on the actress’s body indicated the animal had tugged at his mistress in an attempt to arouse her.” 

Nick’s account is based on the gossip book “Hollywood Babylon” sentence: “…her half-eaten corpse was discovered in her seedy apartment on Cahuenga Boulevard. Her dachshund had survived by making mincemeat of his mistress.”]

She never meant that much to me
(But now I see) Oh poor Marie
Marie Provost was a movie queen
Mysterious angel of the silent screen

 
[There wasn’t anything very mysterious about Marie Prevost. An office worker, her good looks got her a surprise contract with Mack Sennett as one of his “bathing beauties.” She stood around in his film comedies looking cute and pretty, not mysterious. 

She eventually quit Sennett to work for Irving Thalberg at Universal, and in a publicity stunt, burned her bathing suit, vowing to star in worthwhile romantic comedies. Which she did. Sort of. “The Married Flapper” was one of those. She became a $1000 week star, and appeared in the non-mysterious “The Beautiful and the Damned” (1923) based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. She  then played a housewife in “The Marriage Circle” for directer Ernst Lubitsch. Unlike Theda Bara and some other vamps of the day, Prevost was not promoted as some mysterious creature to be found emoting in exotic movies]

She came out west from New York
But when the talkies came
Mary just couldn't cope
Her public said Mary take a walk
All the way back to New York

[Marie was born in Canada, and never lived in New York. She, her mother and step-father Frank Prevost settled in Los Angeles. The talkies had nothing to do with Marie’s decline. Misfortune dogged her before she "became the doggie's dinner." Insecurity began when she was traumatized by the accidental deaths of her father (1904, while working for the railroad), and in 1926, her mother (car crash). Having two failed marriages didn’t help. Still, she did attain fame and fortune with her film career and made some prestigious films. As her career continued to build, influential people noticed.

After the Lubitsch film she had an affair with Howard Hughes, who starred her in “The Racket” in 1928.  Her salary zoomed to $1500 a week. After The Depression hit and the stock market crashed, and she made “The Godless Girl” (1929) for Cecil B. DeMille, her weight ballooned and her fortunes ebbed. A 1930 fire destroyed her opulent home. With no big starring roles coming in, and no insurance, she had to move into a shabby apartment.  She was now 34 years old, which wasn't prime for a sexy leading lady. Consider that at that age, even a bombshell like Marilyn Monroe was considered past her prime.

Prevost simply suffered the fate of a lot of beautiful actresses who got older and heavier.  She couldn't get sexy roles anymore, and she wasn't quite old enough to play a mother or some businesswoman or society dame. She got a left-handed compliment in a 1930 issue of Motion Picture magazine. A reviewer already considering her a has-been trying to claw her way back into contention, wrote: “When Marie Prevost did that big climbing-the-stairs number in “Ladies of Leisure,” she hoisted about 138 pounds of the cutest ‘comeback’ Hollywood has witnessed in many a day.”

In “Party Girl,”  (1930, clip below) Marie is well suited to the part of a prostitute — uh, “party girl,” and as this type of whore isn’t necessarily Grade A, there’s a revealing moment where, in black lingerie, she tries to rub off a bit of her pudge on one of the dubious easy-exercise vibrating machines. A gossip column in Photoplay chortled, “And IS Marie Prevost piling on the pounds!” At least she was finding work, but she was stressed out, probably from having too little to do, and then suddenly a few assignments that may have hinged on her drying out and working herself back into shape. 

An article in Picture-Play lumped her in with other actresses who have “collapsed from overwork and spent at least a week in a sanitarium. Betty Compson, Marie Prevost and Laura la Plante are the latest to go to hospital for a rest.” 

Two years later in the 1932 Jean Harlow film “Three Wise Girls” she was just one of the wisecrackin’ broads, similar in type to Iris Adrian or Joan Blondell.  

To be fair to Nick Lowe, he got the idea that talkies did her in courtesy of Kenneth Anger's book: “Her romantic looks didn’t fit her Bronx honk.” And to be fair to Kenneth Anger, he wrote his book before Marie’s films were more widely available on VHS or DVD and people could hear her voice for themselves.]
 
Those Quaalude bombs didn't help her sleep
As her nights grew long
And her days grew bleak
It's all downhill
Once you've passed your peak
Mary got ready for that last big sleep
 
[Prevost had become a chronic alcoholic, but there's no evidence she "got ready" for self-destruction. She wasn’t using pills. Did they even have Quaaludes back then? She was still making films, and hoping to push from bit parts to more substantial roles. An ironic twist to her misery was that in 1935 she appeared in a Mack Sennett-type short called “Keystone Hotel.” She had left Sennett so many years earlier. The short is now revered by slapstick fans for having one of the best and biggest pie-fights this side of Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges. Yeah, one of those pies obliterated Prevost’s face. She was unbilled in her next film, “The Bengal Tiger,” as The New York Times duly noted.

The Times, in their 1936 piece, “Sometimes They Do Come Back,” reported Marie as one of the many still trying to stay in the business: “The siren of Mack Sennett days had been successful with a reducing course and had got herself a job as a contract player. She was put to work almost immediately, in a small part in The Bengal Tiger....Miss Prevost is unbilled in The Bengal Tiger: She has only three lines to say, and those short ones. But she is back at work, skipping arc-light cables and dodging camera dollies on the set once more. ...A few more parts of a few lines each and the studio may find bigger and better things for her to do." 

The implication was that 1937 might be a good year for Marie. But she didn't make it past January of 1937.]

The cops came in
And they looked around
Throwing up everywhere over
What they found

[No newspaper reports, and not even Kenneth Anger, suggested cops threw up because they found a corpse. Or a barking dog and some empty liquor bottles. They also found an IOU that Marie wrote to Joan Crawford. Crawford paid for Marie’s funeral. Though Marie had not made a talkie anyone could remember that well, she did earn a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her death was ultimately attributed to alcohol poisoning.] 

Ready for some horrors? 

Among the many amateurs who’ve taken a stab at Marie Prevost, here’s lispy “Timmybear,” who earns points for mentioning that Marie wasn’t from New York and so…he “corrected” Nick’s lyrics  -- into something that doesn’t rhyme: 

“They said Marie take a walk. All the way back to ONTARIO.” Good one, Mr. Bear. Oh, and let’s applaud the iconoclast YouTubers who refuse to use decent lighting when they do their one-shot Beaudine videos:  

Runners up are The King Prawns, who earn points for having somebody do a hand-held video, rather than just put it on a fucking tripod…and no compensation made for over-peaking vocals. You’ll love the chick on bass who provides the hilarious oohs and ahhs. Also check the clankmeister behind the drums, and some beer-drinker who just happens to position himself on camera behind the vocalist. Somebody actually left a comment: “Good choice of material.” But that may have been referring to the drummer’s white t-shirt; probably 100% cotton. 

Lastly, we have the Cliffdivers, led by an earnest Aussie who assures his live audience that this is the true story of a silent film actress who overdosed on quaaludes and got eaten by her dog. No mention made that this is a Nick Lowe song.  For some odd reason, these guys, who are the most proficient musicians of the three #meToobers you’re sampling, has the LEAST amount of hits: under 100 as of today's November 9th posting. You’ll note the lead singer sweats very well, while the hefty and older bass player seems unsure of why he’s here, and the drummer acts like took a few pills without being sure what they were. 

JUDE KASTLE - "PRETTY PURPLE PANTIES"

Remember PANTIES?
They used to be worn by sexy chicks. A glimpse thanks to a shirt skirt on a windy day was quite a thrill. 
But as the Internet photos reveal, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton pie-oneer'd the no-panties LOOK, and almost none of today's tarts wear undies.
Taylor Swift does. She might be the only one!
Most cunts go around bald-faced.
Is it that in today's unsubtle and impatient world, the idea is to GET DOWN TO IT? 
Or is it that with the bad economies in most nations, it's a NO FRILLS world where women can't afford such a luxury? 

Women shave their twats now, which they might think means there's no reason to wear panties. There's no embarrassing bush to see. Think about it. If a woman is sans-cuntottes (the French term for briefs) all anyone sees is a Barbie Doll crotch — just blank flesh. A woman who isn't exposing pubic hair, and is simply part of the "blank generation," might not fear being exposed if the wind  blows. 

Victoria's Secret isn't the force it used to be. Ratings for their dopey shows have tanked, and even 4 for $5 sales on slut-scivvies can't keep the profits up. Maybe profits began to go bare when they decided it was a good idea to have Bob Dylan singing "Love Sick" in a TV ad. Women are always bitching that it's more expensive to be female than male, so going without underwear gives them a little extra money to spend on something more important, like a nose ring, another tattoo, a pedicure, or whatever Crayolas the Kardashians are selling as make-up.   Men's magazines have tanked in recent years. Go to your newsstand and you'll barely find a copy of Barely Legal. No Penthouse. No Nugget, Gent, Rogue, Dude, Swank, etc. etc. The glowering Indian behind the counter would rather sell you some vape shit and Lotto cards. But what you'll find if you do find a magazine, or a sex magazine's "website only" latest issue, is BALD CUNT and LOTS OF IT. Almost every picture. In the old days, the first few pages of a photo spread would have the teasing strip, and lingering views over those last items: stockings, garterbelt (that's suspender belt in the UK and freakenhosen in German), bra, and PANTIES (that's KNICKERS in the UK and TWATZENMOPPERS in German). 

No more of THAT. Just center in and look at bare crotch. Or as that old kiddie song "Farmer in the Dell" used to say, "The cheese stands alone."

Now, who is Jude Kastle? She was on CD Baby before it became the last resort for all kinds of oddballs like Raun MacKinnon, Gunhill Road and Ron Nagle...major label talents having nowhere to go because nobody buys music unless it's rap crap or utter shit from Sam Smith and Adele. 

Hey, Jude's two albums for them were made long ago: "Ghost of a Girl" in 2002 (which featured "Pretty Purple Panties" and "Junkie For Fire" in 2004.  The last we've heard of Jude Kastle, however, isn't that long ago. She guested on "Beautiful," a song written by the U.K. pianist who calls himself Lach. It's available from...oh, what an improvement on CD Baby...BANDCAMP. 

https://lach.bandcamp.com/track/beautiful-live-w-jude-kastle

It was recorded (Jude on vocals, Lach on piano) at the Sidewalk Cafe's "ANTIHOOT" in NYC

Meanwhile, here's Jude singing about the time she found her boyfriend's dirty magazines under the bed...and one of the slutty models wearing...PRETTY PURPLE PANTIES!!

PRETTY PURPLE PANTIES - download or listen online - no Passwords, no whining for Paypal donations, no creepy malware-shit from a Eurotrash download server

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE .... with LYRICS - THE KANE TRIPLETS

One of the most sensational TV themes of all time, "Mission Impossible" by Boris "Lalo" Schifrin  spent over 3 months on the Billboard Top 100 chart, and won him two Grammy awards. 

Un-naturally, somebody figured, "Hey, why don't we try and put lyrics to this thing, and see what happens?" 

What happened is that you probably didn't know such a travesty existed until now. There have been many unlikely words thrown at famous instrumentals, including the themes for the TV shows "Peter Gunn," "Hawaii Five-O," "Bewitched" and "Bonanza." It's possible even Mack David would've taken a look at the Schifrin music and tossed his pen aside saying, "this mission IS impossible." So is trying to make sense of what the Triplets are actually singing, but go ahead and give it a try. 

The Kane Triplets began their career via modeling for magazine ads. Lucille, Jeanne and Maureen turned up on the early TV talent show hosted by Arthur Godfrey, performed the awful "Inch Worm" novelty song on Perry Como's show in 1961, and were sort of comically paired (or tripled) with The McGuire Sisters for some novelty TV appearances. The McGuires were sisters, so were The Andrews Sisters, but hey, the Kanes were TRIPLETS and looked quite a bit alike. So what's not to like? They turned up on "The Ed Sullivan Show."  Give them girls a record deal!

Kapp raised the Kanes with a 1964 single: "A Word to the Wise" b/w "Spanish Boy." They would get their big chance when Fred Milano and Angelo D'Aleo (who were in the doo-wop group Dion and the Belmonts) put lyrics to "Mission Impossible." 

The Kane Triplets blossomed (as you see in the photo above) but wilted due to the lack of a big hit single. Their Facebook fan page is notably barren except for one comment: "We live in New Jersey We no longer sing anymore We lost our sister Jeanne tragically in 2007." 

How...tragically? Jeanne's ex-husband John Galtieri was an ex-cop. A wife-beater. He still owned a gun, and though it had been four years since the divorce, and he re-married, he was not through with Jeanne. On January 30, 2007, the cold-blooded killer drove up from Florida and stalked his prey. Jeanne, 58 years old, was waiting in a Pleasant Plains parking lot for her daughter to arrive via a bus. Galtieri shot Jeanne in the head. 

Two years later,  February 19, 2009, Staten Island judge Stephen Rooney, said: "What's particularly chilling here is the calculated and premeditated nature of this murder." The judge allowed Jeanne and John's daughter Patricia to read a statement:

Today, I would finally like my mother's voice to be heard. Throughout the trial, many people have shared their feelings, but my mom, Jeanne, has not yet had the chance.

I also hope to be able to share with you who my mother really was and not just the tragic event that took her from us. My mother, Jeanne, was funny, loving, vivacious, self-assured and loyal.She brightened up any room she entered. No matter how bad everything was, she could always make you smile. My mother was and always will be my hero and my idol. Her strength and courage were incredible. To me, what made her truly special was her ability to always put loved ones before herself. She truly was selfless. There was never a time in my life where she didn't put me first. My mother loved with her whole heart. Not many people can do that. She was that amazing. The day my mother was murdered, the world lost someone truly special. 

John Galtieri tried to take all that away from her and me. My mother endured years of verbal and physical abuse. I watched John Galtieri hit and kick her. My childhood is littered with these images. I used to find my mother with black eyes and a split lip. During one incident, he blamed my mother for his best friend dying of cancer. He threw a glass he was drinking out of at her. At the hospital, the doctor said she had to get so many stitches he stopped counting. Another incident occurred when our golden retriever jumped up at the table and spilled his coffee. He blamed my mother for this because she let the dog in from outside. He threw her to the ground and started punching and kicking her.

A third incident involved him hitting me. As soon as she heard him, she ran into my bedroom to stop him from hitting me. He threw her to the ground. She had just had surgery for her kidneys the same day. He viciously kicked and beat her. At one point, he was kicking her in the lower back around her kidney area. I was so scared that I just cowered in the corner. I regret that to this day. I could not protect her.

It was that night she decided to leave him. She said it was one thing to hit her, but she would never allow him to do the same to me. She had stayed all those years because she was worried he would kill her family or kill me. She finally got the courage to leave him and I was so proud of her. I had been waiting a long time for her to stand up for herself. I always told her that I was strong. I told her he couldn't hurt me but being the mother she was, she still wanted to protect me.

After 23 years, she finally got her life back. Even through all the drama and heartache, she was able to smile and laugh. I would do it all over again just to let her have those nine years of complete happiness. She was together again with our family. We did not have to live in fear of what would happen when John got home. Our happy moments were just that. Happy. When my mother was murdered, I thought I had to be the unluckiest person in the world, but then I realized that I had 25 years with the most wonderful mother a girl could ever dream of. That makes me the luckiest girl in the world.

John Galtieri:

I should have said this a long time ago. You are a coward. Only a coward would hit someone who can't hit them back. Only a coward doesn't take responsibility for their actions. Only a coward hides behind a gun. You might think you have won. You might think you have beat my mother. One thing you underestimated is me. I will finish everything my mother started, but the difference is I will not stop until I have taken everything from you like you tried to do to me. I won't rest until you have lost everything, starting with your freedom. Judge Rooney, I ask you to put this monster away for the rest of his life and as he sits in his cold, lonely cell for the remainder of his days, he will be tortured by this for eternity:

Jeanne beat him.

Jeanne beat him.

Jeanne beat him.

Galtieri was sentenced to life in prison, and died in the slammer. Which did leave one last question...

The answer: daughter Patricia, who was also collecting Galtieri's $2,770 a month police pension. The money was contested by Galtieri's second wife Marilyn. Galtieri, perhaps in response to his daughter's impact statement, had tried to sign his pension off to Marilyn after his conviction. He also tried to declare bankruptcy to keep his pension away from his daughter. He was clobbered on all of this, and he lost all his assets in a wrongful-death lawsuit. The second wife got nothing. His mission to avoid having to literally pay for his crime: impossible. 

The Kane Triplets - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE instant download, no password, dodgy porn-loaded website, no Rapidgator pay-me hypocrisy

MARSHA MALAMET - "On records selling 25 million copies worldwide" THAT'S WHO

In case you haven't checked her out on Facebook, Marsha Malamet changed her profile photo a while ago: 

It's been many a "Coney Island Winter" since she made her debut solo album for Decca. She was 21, and she sang art-pop in a voice that even Kate Bush would say was a LITTLE BIT HIGH. 

She looks a bit happier than she did on the photo inside her album's fold-out: 

 I still remember buying that record. Not that it did Marsha any good. There was a record shop that sort of "fenced" review copies of albums that the local disc jockeys didn't or couldn't play. The very obscure stuff was a dollar, sometimes two for a dollar. For an inquiring music mind, this was indeed a bargain. If an artist was signed to a major label, how bad could the music be? Maybe the artist was just too adventurous for mainstream tastes, but perfect for a small circle of oddballs. Maybe the artist had a bad manager or simply fell through the cracks.

That day, I picked up an album by Nanette Natal because she looked pretty cool and was on Vanguard, and for the two-fer, I added Marsha Malamet because "Coney Island Winter" reminded me of the play "The Goodbye People" (which took place on Coney Island in winter) and she had such a delicious name. Marshmallow? Malamars? Hmmmm.

Below, the rather stunning track that is STILL pretty good, if you take Kate Bush and turn left to Brooklyn, and show the influences of "big moment in the spotlight" Broadway ballads, little girl lost Carole King piano playing, and a segue into"MacArthur Park" symphonic flourish. 

What happened to Marsha? Apparently not all that comfortable on stage, she did play some venues to support the record, but ended up writing songs for others. As her eponymous dotcom tells everyone,  "Marsha’s songs have been recorded by Barbra Streisand, Faith Hill, Luther Vandross, Jessica Simpson, Meatloaf, Diana Ross, Hugh Jackman, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Barbara Cook, Judy Collins, Lea Salonga, and Sheena Easton and many others. Marsha’s top ten international hit single, I Am Blessed, sung by the UK’s pop group, Eternal, moved the Pope to invite them to perform the song at the Vatican..." 

"For the first New York AIDS WALK, her song “Love Don’t Need A Reason”, written with Peter Allen and Michael Callen, was selected as it’s theme song. Since then, many AIDS WALK’s across the country, have used the song in their opening ceremonies. Marsha has sung it at many of them. To date, there have been over 35 recordings of the song..." 

Sometimes it helps to be "openly gay," especially in the entertainment world in the 21st Century, and as Seinfeld would say, "there's nothing wrong with that." If it helps people know the music of Marsha Malamet, fine. And that includes her very quirky high-strung solo album. With much salt water under the Koch-Queensboro bridge, and a lot of winters gone, the singer-songwriter-loving Japanese compiled a CD of some of her demos, and released it as her second solo album, "You Asked Me To Write You A Love Song."

Windy City Times ("The Voice of Chicago's Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Community") duly noted that four co-writes by Malamet appear on "Dangerous Man," an album by Jason Gould. It was produced by Quincy Jones for Qwest Records.  Gould was the vocalist on "Amazing," a song co-written by Marsha and used over the credits of "Scrooge and Marley," a 2012 GAY version of "A Christmas Carol" produced by Sam I Am Films in Chicago. If you're connected in the gay community, which gets a lot of grant money and Art Council funding, you can do well even in this era of low royalties and "we want it free."
 
In the song below, the plucky Brooklynite with cabaret sensibilities, ventures forth into the cold (it's Coney Island in winter) world. There will be heartaches, there will be moments of doubt and dare, but hey, there MIGHT be 25 million records out there with your songwriting credit on them! 

The late KYLIE RAE HARRIS died on the road. “I’d Rather Be Lonely”

At 30, with a 6 year-old daughter at home, Kylie Rae Harris had to step up the pace. She was already "old" by the standards of today. Consider that Miley Cyrus is 26, and has had years of twirking and sticking her tongue out. 30? Kylie hardly even recorded.

With the guidance of management and a record label, she could’ve turned “I’d Rather Be Lonely” from a good 4:30 song into a 3:30 hit. Just tweak it a bit, girl. Take it down a key, strengthen the hook, and add the right guitar and "beats." But that kind of thing takes money, and thanks to piracy, and people wanting everything FREE, there's not much money around for artists anymore. 

Piracy is people saying "I love music," and then disrespecting it by throwing it around. "Here, have some. Have a discography. Whatever you want, I can find it and post it. That makes me so cool, no?" Piracy also involves saying "I'm sharing!" No, you're not. You didn't buy it, you downloaded "from the original uploader." Sharing? You'll walk down the length of the train if somebody is reading your newspaper over your shoulder. Sharing is giving half your dessert to the person across the table, and you wouldn't even do that for your mother. 

So here's Kylie Rae Harris, being told "the music should be free, make money by touring." Yeah? Where? Night after night booking yourself somewhere that takes hours to get to? Who is paying for the gas and the motel and the food? With people staying home to listen to their stolen music or play video games or whatever, who is going out and paying a cover charge to hear an unknown, or even some old-timer?

Kylie loved music, and enough people liked it to give her some hope. She put out an album and went out on the road again. She asked herself: “for how long? Is there a future in this?" How often can she leave her daughter and play low-paying gigs in small towns and in bars stinking of beer? Kyle wrote a song called “Twenty Years from Now.” She sang, “God I hope I’m still around…” 

On YouTube, recorded live at some MusicFest, it's gotten 280,000 views since it was posted in 2016. The royalty for ALL those views might pay the rent — for a month. The other eleven months? Stay on the road or give up. 

Some retired asshole, using a free blog and getting a government check (to use for buying cheese and beer and action figure toys) wants "nice comments" for sitting on his ass with nothing better to do, and uploading free music for other cheapskates to "enjoy." Yeah. "Nice comments" is what the asshole wants, and whether he's a Dutch douche, a Swedish meatball, or a Croatian scrotum-face, he can translate "Thanks!" No problem. 

When Kylie was killed, some people left comments on this YouTube video, comments she will never see. Some comments, well, hopefully her friends and relatives and her daughter won't have to see, because people can not only be stupid, they can be cruel.

GOD called up a new Beautiful voice. Prayers for her family and friends. Kylie is in good hands. RIP
Nice singing voice..Sad to hear her passing.R.I.P. Kylie..My, condolences goes out to her family & friends.
She had a pretty voice so sad rip.
Kylie is in good hands. RIP
A Beautiful Angel For God ! You,ll live Forever in Heaven Kylie
Godspeed, Kylie. May the Lord bless your little girl and the rest of your family.
RIP beautiful angel. God bless your family and friends
So young, so beautiful and left us ... were their songs as eternal memories !!
What about the innocent 16 year old girl she killed?????
So beautiful.. Life is so fleeting.. We love you Kiley!
"Kylie Rea Harris". God bless and RIP
Kylie Harris is a pig that killed a child if there is a hell hope she suffers there.
KRHs amazing voice will be missed but she flies with the Angels....
RIP Sweet Angel
You went home, your heavenly home.

Kylie Rae was told of the dangers of drinking and driving, but what was the alternative? Stay home? Get a day job and just upload stuff and get a few YouTube pennies? Accept that music piracy is part of today's insane morality, which includes indifference to climate change and gun control, and an ever more overbearing sense of self-entitlement? 

She was on the road, had a little too much to drink, and somehow clipped the car in front of her and veered into oncoming traffic. A girl who never heard of Kylie Rae Harris may have only caught a glimpse of the singer before the crash. Kylie may not have not seen the driver at all in the reflection of her own headlights. Both girls were dead on the road.

Yes, some of the greats in C&W, from Patsy Cline to Johnny Horton, died in crashes. The difference is that back then, it was up to them if they toured or not. It was possible to make a decent living just from writing or performing a hit song and getting radio play and juke box play and royalties from copies sold in record stores. Some artists of that vintage didn't die in a crash, but simply had a heart attack alone in a hotel room in some obscure town, needing to keep touring because the royalty checks stopped coming. They stopped coming when people decided to start blogging: "Here's a complete discography. Come back tomorrow. More stuff! Enjoy! I like MUSIC!"

The Association's "WINDY" was really a man. Songwriter Ruthann Friedman sang about him first

The Association didn't write "Windy." 

It took one woman to do what five guys couldn't. 

Bronx-born Ruthann Friedman ( July 6, 1944) wrote the song. She was living on the West Coast, hanging out with a bunch of other singer-songwriters, and actually knocked this hippy-dippy ballad out in less than a half hour at David Crosby's house.

Unfortunately her version seemed like just another singer/songwriter ballad. It took the production values of The Association, and a sex change, to make it memorable. It also required Van Dyke Parks, who was a friend of both Ruthann and The Association, and was able to get her song over to them.

Here's the original and genial "WINDY" from Ruthann: 

"Who's reaching out to capture a moment?" that doesn't sound like a GUY does it? 

"And Windy has wings to fly above the clouds!" that DEFINITELY doesn't sound like a guy. Unless he's living in West Hollywood. "Smilin' at everybody he sees." Especially other guys?  

Two years after The Association hit the charts with the song, Reprise took a chance on Ruthann becoming another Joni Mitchell. The album "Constant Companion" was the companion for...not too many college chicks bringing their luggage and record player to the campus. Well, the first album on Reprise from Van Dyke Parks suffered the same fate. After a while, Ruthann gave up show biz, got a "real job," and raised two kids. Thirty years later, circa 2006, she found an indie label willing to re-issue her album, and she began to gig again. Van Dyke Parks produced a new single for her in 2011 on a sleepy indie label called Ether. A new CD, "Chinatown," was released on the Wolfgang label in 2013.

Looking a bit like a less nasty Judge Judy (and most anyone, male or female, would qualify), here's Ruthann performing her most famous song for an audience at McCabes in 2012:

"THIS CHRISTMAS" with THE REFUGEES

    “This Christmas” is a gift from The Refugees, and like so many Christmas presents, it's being re-gifted. In this case, to YOU. It’s being sent with this dick of a caveat: “If you like Darlene Love’s “Christmas: Baby Please Come Home” or “Jingle Bell Rock,” you might find their harmonizing intensely cheerful!

    If you can't take more than 15 seconds of this thing, that's ok, as long as you get the idea that this trio is talented and that their try at commercial Christmas immortality is no worse than John or Paul's solo offerings. You wouldn't listen to "Wonderful Christmastime" and think the guy incapable of writing "Yesterday." Here, The Refugees are creating an original that harks back to pop Christmas tunes they loved growing up. In reality, their CDs mostly offer rock that fits on the shelf with any good country-tinged group. If you have The Eagles or other Californians of that type, you might try The Refugees. I bought an autographed CD from their website, as I did with Bryndle, a similar bunch of solo singer/songwriters who came together to form a kind of modest super-group. 

   Bryndle's male vocalists are no longer with us; Kenny Edwards and Andrew Gold. The female vocalists were Karla Bonoff (still on the road solo) and Wendy Waldman, who joined The Refugees. Wendy recorded many a solo album, and her music's been covered by artists from Vanessa Williams (“Save the Best for Last”) to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (“Fishin’ in the Dark”).  Fun trivia: her father, Fred Steiner, wrote the “Perry Mason” TV theme.  

     Deborah Holland was the lead singer for Animal Logic, which included Stanley Clarke and Stewart Copeland. She issued four solo albums, but found steady work as a Professor of Music at Cal State. Apparently shrewd enough to not quit her day job, she enjoys the on-again off-again touring and recording that being in The Refugees provides. 

      As mentioned on another blog entry years ago, many of the best known Christmas songs were written by Jews. It's a sick irony that some asshole firing bullets in a synagogue in Pittsburgh and screaming that all Jews must die, probably spent every December sobbing over "White Christmas" and giggling over "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and other songs written by those awful-awful Jews. Two of the Refugees singing "This Christmas" are Jewish. 

    The third member is the former Cindy Bullens, who was always a rougher rocker than the other two. She adds some edge to the sweet tendences of Wendy and Deborah. Bullens has been mentioned several times on this blog. Quite simply, “Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth” (1999) is the greatest concept album by a solo artist since ‘Blood on the Tracks.’ I have an autographed pressing on her Blue Lobster label, but happily Artemis (Zevon's label) picked up and re-released it. Now known as Cydney Bullens, next year should feature his first solo album under his new name. 

    And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Avoided the awful songs piped into stores…including the ones from John and Paul? And you're thankful most of John and Paul's stuff has nothing to do with Christmas? Thanks Refugees, for creating a typical upbeat radio-friendly tune...and for offering a lot more variety on the CDs. Their gift of “This Christmas" is indeed a gift, as it's downloadable from therefugees' website). While there, check out their store, and the brand new CD with all those NON-Christmas songs.

THIS CHRISTMAS - The Refugees - listen online or download. No ego passwords, Paypal demands or creepy sites re-directing you to Spywareland 

ILL-USTRATED SONGS #48 - EXPERIENCE THE THRILL OF BLUE TITS

    As we head toward December, it’s entirely possible that on a cold day, a woman foolishly walking outside without a jacket might find herself with blue tits. She might even emit a squeal but it won't likely be melodious! 

    Spike Milligan recalled on a winter’s day, the sight of “a blue tit who pecked open the cap of a milk carton left at the doorstep. It was a cold day, and the milk was frozen, and the blue tit skated around and around on the milk!” (OK, it was one of those moments where the audience was a little confused by Spike's sense of whimsy.) 

    He didn’t mention if the tit sang a song. Back in the old days, BC, (Before Clarinets), primitive people considered the sounds of nature to be their music. They slept to the sound of crickets and woke to the alarm clock noise of the cicadas. They especially enjoyed how horny birds put on concerts for each other. People heard larks. They quoted ravens. They laughed with the kookaburras.

    Does the average dolt today know the different bird calls? Or care? "Bird Call" and "Sounds of Nature" CDs don't sell too well, and nobody even offers them free in forums. No, it’s more important to go to a blog shoutbox and bleat, “Anybody got a discography of Whitesnake??” Frankly, any noise a bird makes beats anything by Ted Nugent. I'd rather listen to a woodpecker than a peckerwood.

    Below, a brief example of the Blue Tit. It’s a reminder that the best things in life are free, not because you can steal them with a download, but because you’re in the real world and paying attention.

THE BLUE TIT (The RED TWAT is Ed Sheeran. None of his shit HERE) Download or listen online

THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION soothed by THE LIVING VOICES (of Ethel Gabriel)

Amazing: a gloomy climate change headline bounced Kardashian's butt off the vital front page of a news site:

Not to worry. 

The "terrifying climate change warning" scare headline isn't the top story. Who believes it, anyway? 

President Orange Man once declared that when he uses his hair spray, it "disappears into the air," and doesn't seem to do any damage to that precious (if not fictitious) ozone layer in the sky. Republicans in general don't believe in climate change, evolution, or disqualifying a Supreme Court candidate who gets as emotional as a six year-old with alternating sniffles and tantrums. The most quotable thing Kavanaugh has ever said in his life: "I like BEER." 

Shrug off the gloom and doom and be soothed by some "EASY LISTENING" music. 

    “Back in the day” the “silent majority” had an answer to Hiroshima,  fallout shelters and music interrupted by emergency broadcasting system “tests” on the radio. They turned it all off, slapped some EASY LISTENING on the phonograph set with the teakwood needle, and sipped Jack Daniels (country) or Dewar's or J&B (city). In fact, EASY LISTENING could sweeten anything sour, even "Eve of Destruction," which you'll hear below covered by some middle-aged denture-wearing ninnies. 

    What, an entire soothing album of protest songs gone toothless? Sure. The album was just another in an endless series of budget RCA Camden albums intent on making “living” a little “easier.” Most any genre of music could be rendered into aural oatmeal and easily digested by the “Living Strings” and “Living Voices” in the living room. While most of these albums concentrated on Christmas music, standards, show tunes and watered down classical music, nothing was safe, not even Bob Dylan and P.F. Sloan. As an “easy listening” choice, it lends a macabre reality to Tom Lehrer’s line, “we will all fry together when we fry.”

    Would it surprise you to learn that the idyllic life of Ethel Gabriel, inventor of “The Living Voices” and “The Living Strings” ended badly? She lost her husband, her affluent lifestyle, her gold records, her savings, and has ended up in a small room in an upstate New York home. It’s a sad fate for a woman that isn’t even known to feminists, despite being credited as the first female record producer. After starting her musical career with an unlikely instrument choice (the trombone) and fronting a dance band, she worked for RCA. She was one of the executives who went out to Tennessee to scout a refugee from Sun Records with the unlikely name of Elvis Presley. 

     Ethel reached a pinnacle in the 60’s when she helmed RCA’s budget Camden label (named after a mediocre town in New Jersey). She not only re-issued everything from Perry Como to Homer & Jethro, but became the label’s combo of Mantovani and Mitch Miller, signing or supervising all kinds of lame releases by the Boston Pops, pianist Peter Nero, and a vast array of flaccid bandleaders including Hugo Winterhalter, George Melachrino and Henri Rene. Her big singing stars were gooey voiced Roger Whitaker and the Ames Brothers. She also was in charge of the never-ending and constantly expanding “Living” albums (was that title inspired by the Playtex “Living Bra?” that would soon include “The Living Brass,” “The Living Guitars,” and so many others.  RCA was delighted that some albums Ethel produced actually won Grammy awards and were certified Gold. 

    Ethel prospered through the 60’s and even the 70’s. She made a fortune from selling Muzak to middle-aged zombies, cloth-eared wimps and crying Dutchmen, who all sighed over how EASY the listening was. But…interest in the inane world of musical tranquilizers waned. Instrumentals such as “Stranger on the Shore” and “Alley Cat” from Acker Bilk and Bent Fabric gave way to The Beatles, and   Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” and Paul Mauriat’s “Love is Blue” were eclipsed by grunge rockers such as Mick Jagger and Eric Burdon. Past the 70’s, melodic Broadway shows began, in all candor, to ebb. Sondheim offered “Send in the Clowns” but was soon exploring discord with “Sweeney Todd” and “Assassins.”  Few hit songs were coming from movies (the “Godfather Waltz” was a rare exception). The people who wrote hit songs for Sinatra were dead, and Frank wasn’t feeling so good himself.  A last gasp in the late 70’s and early 80’s was when big bands (Les Elgart in particular) and unlikely geezers like Ethel Merman and Cab Calloway, rode their old hits into the discos of the world. 

    By 1984, Ethel Gabriel had pretty much done the “Living Strings” to death. What next? She was persuaded to invest her life savings, a quarter of a million dollars, in starting up “Global Entertainment.” Her advisor was a guy named Robert Anderson, who had been Secretary of the U.S. Treasure under Eisenhower. Either he was senile, or a crafty old bastard. Probably the latter, since he eventually did time for bank fraud. Either way, the company failed, and the 60-something Ethel faced an uncertain future. A lot of her possessions, including her framed Gold Record awards, were sold at auction. She became a widow and had no children to help her. In 2013, at the age of 91, she briefly made the news when a fan discovered her living at the Rochester Presbyterian Home, and gave her a grand gift by spending some money to make a Gold Record replica of one of her long-sold triumphs:

     Thus, a happy ending, of sorts. She no doubt can also take comfort in knowing there are hundreds of blogs that give away "Living Strings" music and Elvis and everything else on RCA. What would she do with the royalty money anyway? Eat less spam and government cheese? 

      Born in 1921, she’s lived to see 9/11 and ISIS and climate change, and predictions that we are, indeed on the “Eve of Destruction.” What do you do about it? Growl like Barry McGuire? Nah, you just croon the tune like the “Living Voices” do, until you stop living.

LIVING VOICES "Eve of Destruction" - no weird foreign download site, no pop-ups, no "update your Flash" spyware games, no dopey PASSWORD, no whine for Paypal donations

KATHY CHITTY...mentioned in "AMERICA" oom pah pah DAVID BOWIE

Do you suppose Kathy is feeling a tad old...hearing the news that her boyfriend from the 60's is in his 70's and on a retirement tour? (The same KATHY mentioned in Paul's "America" song covered weirdly by David Bowie, link below??)

Maybe she actually doesn't think about the little guy that much. Maybe she thinks too much about other things besides "Think Too Much." Ya think? 

I think she may think, "When is another obnoxious photographer from the London Daily Fail going to come out here to an obscure part of Wales, and take another unflattering photo of me? Why pick on ME when there's momentarily no wardrobe malfunction on a Kardashian and no Hadid exposing underboob?" 

Why am I mentioning Kathy? Because this is not only a music post offering a link to an odd-choice song Bowie sang as a "tribute" after 9/11, it also reviews the new bio on Paul, which didn't invade the woman's privacy by showing a photo of how she looks now. That's what TABLOIDS do, and really, SHOULD they??

It's possible that if Kathy took a long distance call and answered some questions, the new official (Paul cooperated) bio would answer any questions morbidly curious people have about her (and the song). Yet, even though asked, she chose NOT to participate in the book. 

Do you suppose if somebody from the LONDON DAILY FAIL had ASKED if she'd mind him taking a picture, she would've said yes? Of course not. So the guy snapped it without her knowing about it. Right? And after that, she couldn't sue because she's a "public figure."

Link to the London Daily Fail Article 

Since I like my readers to have an EASY time, and not have to click a link and then come back, I'll also give you the top part of the article, which is fair use, and I'll also show you the photo, which you'll see has no photo credit or copyright notice. Follow me: 

You'll also note that in the same article, the Daily FAIL used the cover of a Paul Simon album, probably without pay or permission, but DID save themselves by giving a copyright credit: 

Funny (not so much) they didn't give a credit on the unflattering image of Kathy Chitty. As Piers Morgan would say "IF I'M BEING HONEST," tabloids rarely give a photo credit because the photographer might be hounded by fans and beaten with a stick. OR, have his name out there to the point where bodyguards of stars would know him and block access by shoving him OR beating him with a stick.

The authorized "Paul Simon: THE LIFE" doesn't put a lid on any of the questions and controversies in the great man's life. The author doesn't analyze songs (even ones that have baffled people for years, like "Me and Julio"). 

The "authorized" Paul not only ignores Kathy Chitty, but ignores almost all of his wearisome bickerings with Garfunkel. He and his biogrpaher also don't explain how he and his third wife Edie ended up facing a judge in an embarrassing case of marital fighting. And NO, there's not much on the youthful first serious love affair that yielded some memorable songs.

“The Life” offers a few second-hand quotes about Kathy via a a couple she knew back then, the McCauslands. Lynne McCausland doesn’t say much: “Kathy was lovely, very gentle, very shy and quiet. Paul had his quiet and shy side, so they fit each other perfectly.” 

 Paul Simon, on a memorable SNL show, admitted that people come up to him and say “you take yourself SO seriously...” In “The Life,” his relationship with Kathy is taken so seriously that it becomes silly. While the woman refuses to talk, it turns out there's ONE THING she wanted to be in the book: the exact month she and Paul met. THAT is important: 

 “Contrary to repeated reports over the years that they met during Simon’s first trip to England in 1963 (Simon recalled simply seeing her taking tickets on the stops of the Brentwood Folk Club at the that time), they met formally in April 1964. Simon was performing at the White Swan in Romford when Dave McCausland introduced him to Kathy, a shy eighteen-year-old with long, brown hair. The date was supplied by someone close to Kathy, someone who - with both Kathy’s confirmation and permission - wanted to finally set the record straight.” 

Does that make your day? Will the month of April mean something different to you know? April, come she will? He glimpsed her in 1963, but was introduced to her in 1964. The taciturn Mr. Simon, who supposedly spent weeks and weeks being grilled by his biographer only remarks: “It felt like love at first sight. I had never felt that. It was just chemistry.” Anything else? “They may not have said anything more than hello that first night, Simon remembers, but they spent time together the next night, when she and a few other Brentwood folk fans went with him to the Troubadour club in central London, where he sang three songs.” 

Hey, the song about her says it all. There but for the grace of her go him.     

The London Daily Fail, having snapped a Chitty, didn't offer much real information other than "the 68 year-old grandmother" leads a "humdrum life...in a quiet Welsh-speaking village...in a small, detached three-bedoom house on a quiet cul-de-sac, and catches a bus each day to her job as an administrator for a technical college, where she has worked for 25 years." That's more than "The Life" tells us about her.

"The Life" doesn't quote the guy who has had a 40 year relationship with her, Kenneth Harrison. Journeying to that "remote mountain village in North Wales," the London Daily Fail reporter at least got him to admit that they have three children, and used to live in Essex. And that Kathy's fame as a muse was never amusing to her: ‘She wasn’t very comfortable with it. We’re very good friends with Mr Simon and there’s never been a rift. I was there. I was part of that crowd as the second person to meet Paul Simon when he came to Britain in 1963. "America" is the one song which we’ll never escape from because it’s a song about America losing its way.’
  
It is an irony, then, that David Bowie chose to sing "America" when thousands of Americans had just lost their way...staggering from the smoke and debris at the office buildings in which they worked at 9/11.

The song was an odd choice, as "America" is more about alienation and ennui with the American dream. Paul wrote "each town looks the same to me" about touring, but in this song, it seems like this young couple may have some moments that are light-hearted (making fun of fellow passengers) but in the end, it's "toss me a cigarette..." and read some magazines, and these famous lines: 

“Kathy I’m lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping. I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why…”  People looking for recollections of a passionate romance between Paul and Kathy get the sound of silence, because like most anyone's puppy love, the end came because immature people eventually drift apart and find new interests, and if they remain they would only endure everyday monotony, ennui and empty yearnings. 

From “The Life” we learn…little: “In “America,” the narrator’s companion is a young woman named Kathy, which, understandably, led fans to assume that he and Kathy Chitty had taken a trip together during her visit in 1966, but there was no Simon-Kathy bus trip, Simon said. The images in the song were based on his own travels.” It’s always a little dicey, and ridiculous, to try and navigate between an artist’s fantasies and intellectual creativity, and his reality. Why be so eager to think that “America” is a journal song, and not a work of fiction?
         
They met in England, Paul had to come back to America, he later returned, and things just drifted. No big quotes from Paul or from Kathy. On page 237: “While on break, he flew to London to see if he and Kathy could figure out a way to make their lives compatible…he and Kathy acknowledged what had been apparent to them both for some time: their lives had simply drifted apart.” No quote from Kathy, of course. The author apparently couldn’t get Paul to comment further, so relies on a previous quote pried out of him by somebody else: “There was no big drama in our breakup,” Simon said years later. “I don’t remember ever having an argument with Kathy.” 

 Too bad, porn lovers, there will probably never be a graphic description of Chitty bang-bang, and how unseemly it would be to even imagine Paul Simon in the role of passionate lover. They were just a cute couple for a year or two. That's what the cover of "Paul Simon Songbook" shows you, doesn't it? She's just an old flame.
  
 Speaking of flame, the smoke was probably still in the air, and part of the core of the WTC was still glowing orange when David Bowie joined a bunch of superstars for a “Concert for New York City.” As Tom Lehrer might cynically declare, what better way of solving problems than to fire some songs at it? “Ready, aim, SING!” Some of the stars in attendance were only there because it would be good publicity.  Others sang weird defiant new songs (McCartney’s peculiar “FREEDOM”) or sing weirdly inappropriate oldies (McCartney again, doing “I’m Down.”  

 Why is the famous David Bowie on this blog of less renown? This blog of obscure performers? Because his cover of "America" was deemed by some to be inappropriate if not weird. For some reason known only to Sergeant Pepper’s ghost, Bowie sang the song with an oom-pah-pah waltzing tempo. Some androgynes in the band fluted it along with Ferris wheel wind toots. 

What was anyone expecting? A morbid twist on ground zero by re-writing "Ground control to Major Tom?" New lyrics for "Suffer a Jet City?" No, it was good enough that he was there, being a New Yorker, even if his choice of song was odd, and the arrangement odder. Who doesn’t adore Bowie, and the vocal styles that are sort of an anemic version of Anthony Newley? The Brit decided to come live in New York, and when disaster came, he sang for "America." 



DAVID BOWIE sings AMERICA - instant download or listen online. No Paypal tip whining, no grinning emoji of brattiness, no taking you to a freak site that will put spyware on you, tell you your FLASH is out of date, or re-direct you to hell.