Bobby Darin & Bobby Kennedy

There's a new movie about Bobby Kennedy's death. It doesn't mention two repercussions: Bobby Darin changed his name to BOB Darin, and grew a mustache.
He also began writing the best songs of his career. Especially since he didn't write either "Beyond the Sea" or "Mack the Knife." Bob Darin turned up on variety shows singing protest songs. Audiences were shocked. Critics didn't buy his sincerity, or understand that Darin had worked hard for Kennedy's campaign and was devastated by the assassination.
A few years passed, and Darin put a toupee on, got his tuxedo out of mothballs, and was once again a star. His Copa-type stuff is still lapped up by the same "lounge" heads who think the Rat Pack still matter. Just one CD compiles selected tracks from his two sincere self-penned folk-rock albums, and two of his best are missing.
"In Memorium" was inspired by RFK's death. Strange that any re-issue label preserving Darin's legacy could leave off a song Darin cared so passionately about. Sorry for the pops and clicks; I got this rarity used and it's been well played.
Also left off, is "Bullfrog," which I include as an example of Darin's humor. It's got a bit of Randy Newman to it, especially in the "turn your radio down" talking aside.
RFK was not on a lot of folks' minds when Darin was playing Vegas and Nixon was in office. Bobby died on December 20, 1973 from the heart ailment that had plagued him since childhood, and a year later Nixon resigned.
Direct downloads: no Rapidshare, porn ads, or swervy code-words to read:
IN MEMORIUM (for RFK)
BULLFROG (for social satire)

LA LUPE WOLFS DOWN PHIL OCHS

At last! Illfolks offers Phil Ochs!
One of Phil's more unusual songs was "That's The Way It's Gonna Be," where gloomy minor key clouds keep breaking for a resolute melody line that forces optimism. Phil co-wrote it with Bob Gibson. Here, it gets a bizarre Latin twist from the legendary La Lupe.
La Lupe usually sang in Spanish, and as the photo shows, she was such a legend that a Spanish Harlem street was eventually named for her. Sizzling to the point of becoming a charred Charo, she somehow creates an interpretation that is both amusing and riveting, kind of funny but also fierce.
Phil, who once wrote a tune called "Bracero," and was devoted to the cause of peace in Chile, was no stranger to Latin stylings. And no Latin version of an Ochs song, including Jose Feliciano's take on this very same tune, is as strange or as singular as this one from La Lupe.
That's The Way it's Gonna Be Wait and See. Actually, no wait. This is not a Rapidshare or Megaupload or any other wait 45 seconds, "peer through a zillion ads to find the download link" deal. It's INSTANT. Hear on line or download.

Eun-Ju Lee (Corrs song) FALLEN STAR

Like a falling star, Eun-Ju Lee was a bright and beautiful presence for a short time, and when thousands began to point to her, that's when the descent began.
This pretty South Korean actress seemed to deal with each new challenge in her career, rising from teen comedy roles to the more difficult parts of a blind woman, a woman dying of cancer, and a reporter carrying a deadly fetus. In many films her screen character suffered and died, and it seemed tough for this increasingly depressed and weary young woman to go home at night and shake off the day's shoot.
Adding to her pressures was family debt, an irony considering she was now one of her country's biggest stars. She appeared in "Tae Guk Gi," which was to South Korea what "Gone With the Wind" is to the U.S.A., starred in "Phoenix" (aka "Firebird") a huge TV soap opera (now on 9 DVD discs) and, near exhaustion, took on yet another bizarre and harrowing role. In "The Scarlet Letter" she played a bisexual nightclub singer in a script containing nudity, violence and gore. Aside from grotesque scenes in which she was blood-spattered and screaming, she also had to be convincing in the scene in which she performs a song.
She chose to sing in English, and performed the eerie Corrs song "Only When I Sleep." It was her only recording, and her last role. Not long after the film was made, and only weeks after graduating college, Eun-Ju Lee slit her wrists and hanged herself, leaving an apologetic note to her mother.
Two notes: in South Korea last names are given first (there, she's Lee Eun-Ju) and since phonetic English translation varies, her name is often spelled Eun-Joo. An actress with a similar name co-stars in "Take Care of my Cat."
Here's a worthy version of "Only When I Sleep,"even if she had some difficulty pronouncing certain words. Perhaps the fleeting photos on this page will lead you to buy or rent one of her films. She was talented, beautiful, and for as long as it was possible for her, determined and brave.
Eun-Ju Lee covers ONLY WHEN I SLEEP

Greta Keller: She was the Wan

A sweet sorrow will comfort you hearing the voice of Greta Keller (1905-1977). Rather than wax melancholic over the wax, discover for yourself the nostalgic niche occupied, perhaps to waning interest, by the interestingly wan Greta Keller. Perhaps it's Keller's lingering German accent that makes her interpretations bittersweet, the tremulous attention she gives toward interpreting the lyrics, or just the aura she presents as a world-weary and aging chanteuse on a dreary tour through smoke-filled nightclubs.

Madame Keller's private life, as her voice suggests, included a variety of traumas. The worst was the murder of her husband David Bacon, apparently while he was patronizing a gay brothel. He was vaguely known at the time for portraying The Masked Marvel in a movie serial. Pregnant at the time of the tragedy, Greta's child arrived stillborn.

In 1940 she opened "Chez Greta" at New York's Algonquin Hotel. Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Tallulah Bankhead, Greta Garbo, Cole Porter and Maurice Chevalier all toasted her as one of the best. In 1947 she opened a new "Chez Greta" in St. Moritz Switzerland and in 1960 returned to New York for two years at the Waldorf Astoria. She continued to tour the world through the 60's and early 70's, evoking nostalgia and stoking libidos. Her rendition of "Married" can be heard in the 1972 film "Cabaret."

Dietrich was more theatrical, Hildegarde evinced more humor, but the tender Greta Keller has a way with a sad song. A previous post had 20 of 'em, which Rapidshare killed during a "5 day inactivity" purge. It's hard to trust 'em again, so here's one number they can't take away...

Instant access, no Rapidshare, codes, or confusion in getting to a page where the link is hidden amid a dozen garish ads:

They Can't Take That Away From Me (or you)

Pat Benatar/Karla DeVito go Briley

Karla and Pat earned their M.B. -- by covering Martin Briley.
Briley's the misanthropic singer-songwriter who had an MTV video hit with "(You ain't worth) The Salt In My Tears."
When sung by WOMEN, Martin's vicious songs become feminist anthems. Oh, the irony of it. "I'm Just Using You" is power pop slapping you in the face. Pat Benatar is even tougher with "Take It Any Way You Want It."
Also here: two other vintage Briley songs, "Someday, Someway" covered by Jeff Healey and "Can't Keep Running" by Greg Allman. Briley toned himself down to become a very successful songwriter (Celine Dion and N'Sync) but his real fans are buying the 2 CD re-issue set featuring all three of his classic Mercury albums (and a few demo and bonus cuts), songs from when Briley was that bitter twisted lemon floating in the cocktail of the 80's. Or something like that. It's always a salty download if it involves wryly briney Martin Briley.

KARLA DEVITO

PAT BENATAR

JEFF HEALEY

GREG ALLMAN
It's always a salty download if it involves the wryly briney
MARTIN BRILEY

WHORES

Here are 19 songs (it had to be over 18, considering the subject) that describe the world of prostitution, pimps and Johns.
Hookers cover every social strata, so this collection includes honky tonk girls, high class call girls and raunchy street hustlers.
In song most of them are given sympathy and even admiration. For providing a needed service, these women have earned both bucks and some respect. The most ambivalent well-known whore song is "Sweet Painted Lady," here sung by both Elton the Original, AND Bridget St. John, cover-girl. The refrain; "getting paid for being laid, guess that's the name of the game." No kidding, Bernie, and TAB A goes into SLOT B.

The most famous whore song is "Love For Sale," and it's covered here in the classic "De-Lovely" way by some cabaret babe or other, a sexier way (Jane Birkin) and even via male gigolo Elvis Costello. Classic street walker-hustler songs come from Georgia White, Ma Rainey and Chippie Hill. You also get a "Best Little Whorehouse" ho' down, and "Do You Think I'm a Whore" and "Hooker on a Corner." Plus Donna Summer's classic about bad girls and the Academy Award winning "Hard Out Here for a Pimp." Different strokes...
Some might not have listened to the lyrics of Police/Sting operation "Roxanne" closely enough to realize it's a faux-Jamaican lament to a hooker. "You don't have to put out de red light," Sting rasta-rasps. Rather than bother with his version, we have a more luridly sympathetic take from female vocalist Dilana.
Also here, "Barcelona" by the limp-wristed Sinceros, who self-consciously sing of "prostitutes with very large hearts entertaining very small parts," and the prodigy Janis Ian who was not even of legal age when she wrote and sang "Pro Girl." I like her attempt at seeming British by quoting the whore fee in "pounds" not dollars. She works in a play on the John's Bargain Store chain, ("John, bargain well...") which is pointless but it shows how precocious this poetess was at 16. And At Seventeen...she couldn't even give it away.
19 tracks. All that's missing is Hora Staccato. No charge for the download, which, I know, makes me look cheap.
HELLO
SAILOR

ZACHERLE THE COOL GHOUL

Now nearing 90, and looking the same as he did when he emerged in the late 1950's as cult tv's undead "Cool Ghoul," John Zacherle is a legend. He spliced himself into the old horror movies he was hosting, created a low budget world of support characters (one was pretty much a huge slab of gelatin) and laughed at his own bad horror puns with a cheerful barking yock. He got the cover of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" without making a film (although his records were sold in the back pages), had a novelty hit via "Dinner with Drac" and even covered "Monster Mash." After influencing Vampira, Elvira and dozens of other would-be horror TV hosts he miraculously went from East Coast TV phenom to rock disc jockey on WPLJ in New York. Very cool! That's just the merest thumbnail sketch, because I lost the actual thumb I was typing with! Ha...ha...yock....
Here's a sample of vintage and recent Zach tunes. He may not mean as much if you didn't grow up with him, but let's see if he can put a Sardonicus-grin on the pusses of total strangers. A Halloween re-post from July. Rapidshare killed the link for lack of activity some months later, but you can't kill Zacherle!
The lucky 13 download includes "Coolest Little Monster," "Sure Sign of Spring," "Transylvania PTA," "Graverobbing Tonight," "Formaldehyde" and even a cover of Tom Petty's "Zombie Zoo."
"Foam at the mouth via your RABIDshare download, my dear. Ha ha...."

CREPUSCULE - lys gauty

While flipping through the record racks (remember this near-extinct ritual?) I saw the cover portrait of Lys Gauty on a 2lp set. Did the woman actually look like that?
Turns out, several paintings and posters were done in a similar way, accentuating her huge pale eyes and severe blood-red lips.
Alas, Madame Gauty in real photos, is not quite so vampish or tarsier-like. Her music, likewise, is fine, but not spooky or sexy.
Take "Crepuscule," which, students, translates as "twilight," and the time of day when crepuscular creatures with huge eyes, such as lemurs and tarsiers, become active.
Music and lyrics by Django Reinhardt and Francis Blanche. It was recorded in 1943. It is about shadow and substance, of things and ideas; it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge...a dimension of imagination. Your next stop: The Crepuscule Zone.


Instant Listen or Download: LYS GAUTY

PAUL FREES as PETER LORRE: "HEY JUDE"

Imagine combining Peter Lorre and Paul McCartney! Paul Frees (lower right corner photo) did. Paul Frees was a genius, arguably the finest voice-over talent of all time, capable of vibrant Orson Welles-type movie narration as well as silly cartoon and commercial voices (Boris Badenov, Ludwig Von Drake, Captain Peachfuzz, Pillsbury Doughboy...)
He gave me an enduring thrill when, in response to a fan letter, he CALLED ME UP to say hello. That'll make an impression on a kid!
He did his legendary Peter Lorre impression on radio in front of Peter Lorre himself (on the Spike Jones show) and as a "pet project," got a chance to revisit Lorre on "Paul Frees and the Poster People," where he imagined classic movie stars singing contemporary tunes.
My favorite album track, and your sample, is "Peter Lorre" suavely singing and periodically going ballistic on Paul McCartney's "Hey Jude."

No Rapidshare. No gimmicky codes or link-protect porno ads. Instant download.
RIGHT HERE.

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

The last gasp from The Ivy League Trio has turned out to be an enduring death rattle, the lp "Folk Songs from the World of Edgar Allan Poe." The trio landed at the tail end of both the folk craze and the Famous Monsters of Filmland horror-novelty era, and this Reprise gem was neglected. It was the debut for newest trio member Ronn Langford (replacing Bev Galloway) and also the farewell. Ironically he, of all other members, has ended up with a long and prosperous life outside of show biz.

At least one rocker (Greg Kihn) has listed this as a very influential album. The trio flirted with macabre material during their Coral/Decca era, including "Ballad of Springhill," "Ballad of Tim Evans" and "Delia's Gone," but surpassed themselves as they adapted and in many cases re-wrote the original material given them by their new record label. The album ranges from poignant ("Eleanora") to spooky ("House of Usher") to ludicrous ("Tell-Tale Heart" re-written as a Western!) with this sample falling in between. It combines lusty folk balladry with over-the-top guignol as one might expect (and even demand).
"Folk Ballads..." is one of the finest ill folksong albums, and if you like "Pit and the Pendulum" then reward the record dealer who has been waiting for years to unload it on someone, cheap. Why, the moody album cover painting is suitable for framing....

No more Rapidshare. No codes. No downloads detoured for porn ads.
INSTANT Gratification PIT & THE PENDULUM

SHE'S SO FLEXIBLE - MARTIN BRILEY

This is a rare re-post. I don't want you ill folks out there to forget about Martin. Not when he was nice enough to leave a comment the first time!
Responding to my July posting and picture:

"There was I trying to write a beautiful, heart-felt, sincere song about a very considerate woman and you lot with your filthy minds go and turn it into something sordid and disgusting.
Kind Regards
Martin Briley."
Instant Download Instant Download, no code words or porn ads. Listen on line, too!

ILL FOLKIE: FRED ENGELBERG

Finally, some nine months into the blog, here's an actual ill folk! The seed that germinated this blog was to chronicle obscure folk singers, but...things sort of drifted.
Fred issued only two albums (both on Crestview/Elektra). One was ethereally titled "Smoke Dreams of Fred Engelberg" and on the other, his name was spelled wrong on the cover ("The Songs of Fred Engleberg"). Neither release had a single biographical word about him. His self-penned liner notes for "Smoke Dreams" didn't even mention his roles in three films "The Lost Missile" (1958), "The Beat Generation" (1959) and "Dinosaurus" (1960).
Instead, the obscure folkie baffled any would-be buyer by a lengthy rumination on the album title: "smoke dreams...in a manner of speaking...(is) somewhere between talking and singing...somewhere between you...whoever you are...and me...whoever I am." Then a rumination on his influences "...because there was Mark Twain and Jazz and Woody Guthrie...there was Hayakawa and Kabuki and S.J. Perelman...there was Thurber and "doggerel" and Pirandello...there was Bullfinch and the Bible and Joe Gould and the writings on bathroom walls...and there was what they have done to my head..."
The burly, bearded folkie's singing style is similar to bearded Burl Ives...quite understated, especially compared to sweaty stablemates Shel Silverstein and Judy Henske. Fred's quiet singing is mated to some subversive songs. Beyond typical topical folkie protest (a candy machine becomes a symbol of our tin-hearted culture) he wrote grimly ironic murder ballads and a song challenging Christianity.
Circa 1963, folkies were running to the library hunting up murder ballads, but 30 year-old Fred wrote his own, "Hangman," a brilliant piece of quiet pessimism. When folkies were chasing after "Go Down Moses" and other spirituals, Fred offered the dispirited "Everybody's Talkin' about Jesus and Mary, Nobody's Talkin' about Joe."
The genius of a songwriter is often in expressing what nobody else dares to say, and doing it in an artistic way. How many of you, upon hearing the story of Jesus, thought, "Hey, wait a minute...she's married...she's a virgin...WHAT is the deal with Joseph??"
Fred seems to have quit "the business" a short time later for various other pursuits. Supposedly he spent many years running a hotel. A Fred Engleberg died on January 7th, 2003 in Oregon, a few weeks short of his 72nd birthday...apparently not THIS Fred (updating from the comments received). Fred, oh brother, where art thou? Why not say a few syllables in the comments??
I'll slip you five...mostly because my vinyl's in embarrassingly bad condition (I found both albums used, of course) and some other tracks are a little too crackly. Listen...and you will not forget the forgotten Fred Engelberg.
Oct 20: New Rapidshare link for Engelberg not Engleberg

3 C&W SUICIDES

Some say country tunes are morbid. Hey, it's not like these people had easy lives. In some cases, even fame could not prevent a very sorry end. Here's three "old school" singers the average music fan may have vaguely heard of, offering numbers with evocative titles such as: "Pick Me Up On Your Way Down," "I see the Want in your Eyes," and "I've Hurt Her More than She Loves Me."
Not to mention numbers that seem a bit grim considering the way these guys ended up: "I Don't Hurt Anymore," "There Goes My Everything," "I Found Heaven," "Lovin' on Borrowed Time" and "Empty Glass." You get a lucky seven from each of these late greats. 21 titles in all.
FARON YOUNG was a honky tonk legend, born in Louisiana and nicknamed "The Hillbilly Heartthrob" when he joined Capitol records at age 20. His biggest hit, written by Willie Nelson, was "Hello, Walls." Young was aging badly and having health issues when he decided to end his life via gunshot, December 10, 1996.
GARY STEWART of Kentucky grew up in Florida where he married his favorite girl Mary Lou (he was 18, you can bet she was younger). He kicked around from 1965 till 1975 when he reached #1 with "She's Actin' Single, I'm Drinkin' Doubles." His pure C&W style went out of favor, leaving him simply a touring musician in the 80's, fighting pills and booze. His son killed himself, but Gary still had his beloved wife to lean on. That was until Thanksgiving, 2003, when Mary Lou succumbed to pneumonia. Stewart cancelled a holiday concert, and about three weeks later, cancelled himself with one gunshot, December 16, 2003.
MEL STREET, born King Malachi Street, was from West Virginia, and in the late 60's and early 70's hosted a local TV show there. "Borrowed Angel" was a local hit that brought him national attention in 1972. He followed it with "Lovin' On the Back Streets," and his career was moving forward. He hit a new high in 1978 when he signed with Mercury records, but later that year, the depressed alcoholic hit a fatal low, killing himself on October 21, his birthday.

The songs Live On via RS
UPDATE: December 2006. The suicide file died of natural causes...a Rapidshare purge of files not downloaded in 30 days. Or was it 15. or was it 5...SECOND UPDATE: Re-Upped for the last time, July 2008. If it dies again, it's terminal.

THIRD UPDATE, May 2009. OK, it died again. R.I.P. guys, you're not getting re-upped.

THE END OF THE WORLD x 12

A sad and simple ballad, "The End of the World" has out-lived Skeeter Davis, the woman who in a never-ever-topped feat, brought the song to the Top 4 of all four major Billboard charts: country, pop, contemporary AND rhythm and blues. The song was played at Skeeter's funeral, which is appropriate for another reason. The song is as much about death as it is the end of a relationship. Skeeter felt that way; when she sang it, she called up the memory of a friend who had recently died in a car accident.

Under her pseudonym Sylvia Dee, lyricist Josephine Moore sketched the words after the death of her father. Gradually it smoothed itself out to a ballad that could be about death or just a break-up: "it ended when I lost your love." The survivor sings, "I wake up in the morning and I wonder...how everything's the same as it was. I can't understand — no I can't understand — how life goes on the way it does."
Life goes on, and many singers have taken their turn with this song that touches on that tragic situation when finality comes a little early, and leaves another behind...grateful to still be alive, but forever dealing with emptiness and heartache.
No other song proved a bigger hit for Skeeter Davis or for Sylvia Dee, who also wrote the lyrics for "Angel Lips, Angel Eyes," "Puschart Serenade," "Moonlight Swim," "Somebody Nobody Wants," and "Please Don't Talk to the Lifeguard." Nobody touches Skeeter's version, though the download has many worthy attempts and moving arrangements of this enduring, humble tune.
Skeeter died of cancer, September 19, 2004. "The End of the World" was played at a memorial service for her at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, a service attended by contemporaries including Vince Gill, Bobby Bare, Marty Stuart, Martina McBride, Connie Smith, Jan Howard, Jeannie Seely, Jean Shepherd, Del McCoury, Lorrie Morgan, Sammy Kershaw, Donnie Fritts, Dickey Lee, Jack Greene, Billy Walker, Bill Anderson, Jimmy Dickens, Charlie Louvin and George Hamilton IV. In June of 2005, one thousand fans came to an estate sale at her Kentucky home to buy her clothes, memorabilia, and other items she left behind.
Your download offers a dozen versions, (some ripped from rare vinyl just for your listening misery) including Claudine Longet, Leigh Nash, Sonia, Brenda Lee, Vonda Shepard, Agnetha Faltskog and The Carpenters. While the tune is more in keeping with a woman's emotion of woe, there are two male versions here...the teen angst of Peter Noone (Herman's Hermits) and a take from Jerry Lanning which...well...you hate to hear a grown man sing this song...

Oct 20: New Rapidshare Link END of the WAITING

Sgt. Pepper's MAX MILLER

One of the many faces you probably didn't recognize on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band belongs to... Max Miller.
The Stone Age Benny Hill, merry Maxie was known as "The Cheeky Chappie" for the saucy tunes that got him banned from BBC radio for five years.
Probably all of The Beatles wanted him on the Pepper cover. Lennon and Harrison must have loved Miller's vaudevillian bravado (a style that may have later influenced Spike Milligan and the Monty Python troupe). McCartney and Starr probably also loved Miller's musical styles, ones that your mother would know, and still make for a sentimental journey.
He died in 1963, just before The Beatles changed the music world. He remains a beloved figure in England and has been the subject of a few TV documentaries and other belated huzzahs.


No Rapidshare. No codes or ads. Just "MARY FROM THE DAIRY"
By MAX MILLER

Mr. Flood's Party - Horror-Psych Album

A late 60's psych band naming itself after a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson? They would either become the darling of college campuses or an obscurity on the illfolks blog. 
You guessed the latter.
A remarkably unknown band, nobody seems to know what the members did before they got their one-shot contract on Cotillion, and few know anything about their life after it. 
Some amateur blogs and dubious websites insist that Mr. Flood's Party sprang from a group called The Now, which recorded two singles for Embassy in 1968.  Not likely. No members of Mr. Flood's Party have a writing credit on the few singles The Now made, including this one:

The singing by The Now also doesn't sound much like the guys in Mr. Flood's Party.

For the record, the members of Mr. Flood's Party were Tom Castagnaro, Michael Corbett, Jay Hirsch, Rick Mirage, Marcel Thompsen, and Freddy Toscano.
The album has a strange but pleasing mix of  Crosby-Stills-Nash harmony (most notable on the song "Deja Vu," which is not to be confused with either the CSN tune or one on a single by The Now) and most any overwrought psych band of the era, including Long Island's beloved and melty Vanilla Fudge. "Northern Travel" would be an example of that, and of course you have songs titled "Liquid Invasion" and "Mind Circus." Heavy, man. A B-side of one of their few singles was "Alice Was a Dream." 
Add a dash of Zappa; the band wasn't averse to drifting off into tongue-in-cheek chant ("Tangerine...tangerine...kiss my tangerine...") or mocking the "Evil Prince of Darkness" with saucy lyrics and a dash of doo-wop.
The best song is the shortest, probably the only one that might've had a shot at being a single. Not a hit single, but a single. It's "Simon J. Stone," which is the only song on the album that references Tilbury Town, where Edwin Arlington Robinson's characters lived in their anguish, chagrins and occasional glory.
After Mr. Flood's Party, Corbett & Hirsch put out a fairly obscure album, and Freddy Toscano a VERY obscure album. (I have the former, but the latter isn't even on eBay for a few hundred bucks).
"Simon J. Stone, you're a good man, what is there left for a good man?" Or an obscure 60's psych band that put an old man on the cover of their album years before "Aqualung."
UPDATE 2019:
Mr. Flood's Party finally got a CD release, but apparently the source is somebody's M- vinyl, as one reviewer heard a click or pop now and then.
Another blog reviewed it and for some reason, included several lines from THIS blog's review without credit. Gosh, imagine that, people on the Internet not caring about plagiarism, credit, or anything...

Join......the party.

GENE BARRY & BURKE'S LAW

He had Klass. Until he changed his last name to Barry.
The debonair Jewish actor became a star as TV's Bat Masterson, and then Amos Burke, both law-keeping dandies who regretted fist-fights if it soiled their expensive clothes.
Only Robert Vaughn made better use of 60's Hero Take #48 (mouth open, no sound coming out, followed by a mild glare and an exasperated grimace).
A closet vaudevillian, Gene Barry loved any opportunity to sing, and he did so in nightclubs, on episodes of "Burke's Law" and ultimately on Broadway in "La Cage Au Folles."
Here, you get Gene's somewhat gross version of the theme song with leaden lyrics ("Hey, Lovuhhh...") The original posting included "The Burke's Law Suite," a bombastic collage of great music from the original TV soundtrack. It's a lounge classic, and the rest of Barry's album, but it timed out via Rapidshare around Oct. 15th when they had their infamous file purging. "If nobody downloads in time, tough luck for us all." Illfolks Law.
"Burke's Law," produced by Aaron Spelling, is still great fun to watch. Ironically, the character first appeared on an episode of "The Dick Powell Show." The episode "Who Killed Julie Greer" starred Dick Powell as Amos Burke. That was in 1961. In 1963, with Powell suffering a terminal illness, Gene Barry stepped into the role and "Burke's Law" began it's two year run. When the spy craze hit TV, the show was re-tooled as "Amos Burke: Secret Agent," and retired after 17 episodes. In 1994, "Burke's Law" had a brief revival with Gene Barry once again in command, surrounded by a new team of sidekicks.
Despite the cad image, Gene Barry has had one of the longest marriages in Hollywood, and he capped his long acting career with a cameo in "War of the Worlds" (having starred in the original.)
Gene Barry is always a suave, humorous and compelling presence. Nobody has his voice or, come to think of it, those unusually sculpted ears. Your ears may get re-sculpted listening to the jaunty baritone of a man so in love with crooning he probably takes an extra shower each day just so he can sing in it.
"It's..." ...Burke's Theme sung by Gene Barry
No Rapidshare or Porn-ad click-throughs. Instant download.

BOB DILDYN RADIO THEME HOUR : VAGINA

Premiering the same day as the release of "Modern Times," the BOB DILDYN RADIO THEME HOUR offers a compilation of songs about the Vagina.

Bob's cogent commentary on "the mighty quim" prefaces many of the selections, which include:

It's All Right It Won't Bite
Cameltoe
Pretty Purple Panties

Shave 'em Dry
My Girl's Pussy
Red River Sally
We Are the Tampons
Rotten Fish
My Vagina
Step Inside Love
I'm a Lesbian
The Pussy Cat Song

As well as Bob's own "When Dogs Run, Freak," which evidently is on his Debasement Tapes release. As John McEnroe used to say about cable radio, "You can NOT be SIRIUS!"


Bob Dildyn!

French is a Loving Tongue

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. The idea is not to necessarily give you an overview of every popular French babe, but a good compilation album of fun covers, as well as moody and exotic and erotic originals.

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

2. Francine Laine. I don't believe she was named after Frankie Laine. 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. It's one of the catchiest pieces of power pop I've heard in years. She's Canadian. She makes me 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. I could do without the guys in the backing chorus but it's too late to do anything about it.

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.

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

7. Dalida wasn't French or Canadian, but sang very 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." At the time I figured any song with "Mourir" in it had to be morbid in some way. OK, she's dead, that's morbid.

8. Jane Birkin. "Le Sex Shop." You all know their more obvious and orgasmic hit single (which is on the blog in the Bardot version, elsewhere) so here's another Serge Gainsbourg duet, the one that 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 her name. "Prelude de Bach" takes a classical theme into lush territory (ie, a saloon where you'll drink and sob imagining your 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." In France, she is a living legend, as huge there as Carly or Joni was here in the 70's and 80's. Her great melodies were spiced with Island rhythms at times, and flirtations with syncopation. In America she's vaguely known as "wasn't she married to Stephen Stills?"

15. Sandrine Kiberlain. "Le quotid." This heartbreaker is also an actress, and she starred in the cult film "Monsieur Hire" as, what else, a heartbreaker. Based on aGeorge Simenon story, the mystery is moody, erotic and being French, depressing.

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.

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.

Various ladies could be here, including Lara Fabian, Zazie, Nathalie Cordonne, Alizee, the duo of Lily Margot, Vanessa Paradis, etc. etc.. So, assemble your own compilation and upload it, nu?

That's FRENCH! Via Rapidshare

And if you want a quick pick-me-up, here's the sprightly Dalida pop tune:
Instant Download or listen on line.

CARROLL O'CONNOR - Remembering You

"It's all over now." I mean, the controversies over "All in the Family," where Carroll O'Connor and cast had to defend their show against charges of promoting bigotry. Today, the show is remembered, and still watched, as a "classic." Though so much praise went to Carroll O'Connor he modestly said his "Archie Bunker" character was merely a cross between Jimmy Cagney and Jackie Gleason.

During the run of "All in the Family," O'Connor was inspired to write lyrics for Roger Kellaway's closing theme song. The opening sentiment: "Gotta feeling it's all over now, all over now, we're through. And tomorrow I'll be lonesome remembering you..."

He got a chance to record this wistful number on an album called "Remembering You," a collection of 30's hits with spoken introductions for each song. As you download this and play the opening line, "It's all over now..." may the memories of all the great work Carroll O'Connor did come back to you. It's a good song, too. Here's "Remembering you," sir.

Fresh Link Instant Download HERE. No codes, Rapidshare or confusion

ISTANBUL NOT CONSTANTINOPLE

If they told you once, they told you five times:
ISTANBUL, NOT CONSTANTINOPLE!
The Four Lads told you in the 50's, and so did
2. Caterina Valente (so many ways to spell her name wrong!)
3. Trevor Horn
4. Moxy Fruvois
5. They Might Be Giants
The question...why such continuing enthusiasm for a novelty song about ethnic identity?
Having a white person faking a Middle Eastern yowl is not very PC, nor is the use of snake-charmer woodwinds and a camel-clop boogie beat. It's remarkable that nobody's called for this dopey, catchy song to be banned (like, say, a certain bunch of novelty newspaper cartoons).
Do you know why it's ISTANBUL and not CONSTANTINOPLE?
Well, Students, centuries ago the city was named for emperor Constantine, and was part of the conquering empire of Greece. This didn't thrill the Turks, who got tired of bending over to the Greeks. When Greek road signs announced "Stanbulin" (meaning, "To the City"), some Turks made it "Islambol" ("Islam abounds"). "Stamboul" became a popular nickname for the place.
Around the 1920's, the Ottomon empire officially collapsed (terrible news if you were sitting on an ottoman at the time). Mustafa Kemel, who himself preferred another name (Kemel Ataturk, aka "Father of the Turks") officially proclaimed Turkish independence from past rulers and changed the name to Istanbul. But around the world, it was still Constantinople.
As late as the 50's, Turkey was roasting with hostility over this insult, and that led to...a novelty song that went a long way toward setting everything straight! With radio-commercial repetition ("Instanbul! Not Constantinople!") and a jocular basso refrain ("people just liked it better that way") The Four Lads told the world and the world...listened!
The power of humor! A musical elbow in the ribs got the world to call Constantinople Istanbul! Handling things with a dash of comedy worked wonders!
Right?
Somehow despite Middle East tensions, this tune with it's stereotypical Persian Market (!) instrumentation and air-rending Arabic (!) yodels, still gets covered. Perhaps it still needs to be. In Greece, Turkey's town is still called Konstantinopolis by those who feel "after all we did for you" the place should still acknowledge its past. Some Greek-made maps don't even add Istanbul in parenthesis. But most everywhere else (all together) it's ISTANBUL not CONSTANTINOPLE.
That's your lesson in trivia, ethnic sensitivity and pride. Download or not. It's nobody's business but your own.


Update: the Rapidshare link died around December 15th, from lack of activity, and the UPLOADED file expired on a re-up. Not a popular entry on the blog?? Well...so it won't be a total loss, here's two tracks upped as singles:

FOUR LADS! Download or listen on line.
AND THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

Karla DeVito & Pat Benatar do Martin Briley

Karla and Pat earned their M.B. -- by covering Martin Briley.
Briley was known for misanthropic songwriting, and unlike goofy, teddy-bear Randy Newman, he looked like he meant it. You might remember his piercing stare and lone MTV video hit "(You ain't worth) The Salt In My Tears."
When sung by WOMEN, Martin's vicious songs become feminist anthems. Oh, the irony of it. "I'm Just Using You" is power pop slapping you in the face. Pat Benatar is even tougher with "Take It Any Way You Want It."

Also here: two other vintage Briley songs, "Someday, Someway" covered by Jeff Healey and "Can't Keep Running" by Greg Allman. Briley toned himself down to become a very successful songwriter (Celine Dion and N'Sync) but his real fans are buying the 2 CD re-issue set featuring all three of his classic Mercury albums (and a few demo and bonus cuts), songs from when Briley was that bitter twisted lemon floating in the cocktail of the 80's. Or something like that. It's always a salty download if it involves wryly briney Martin Briley.

KARLA DEVITO

PAT BENATAR

JEFF HEALEY

GREG ALLMAN

ALL THE NUNS WITH GUNS

Here's a G.E. Smith song with Paul Simon on backing vocals. Even most Paul Simon fans don't know about this rarity. In fact, if you listen closely, you can hardly hear him in the mix. But he's there, and that's part of the quirk on this obscure but catchy tune.
Thanks Jim Delehant (Hit Parader/rock mogul) for handing this to me one day. Many days ago.
G.E. Smith was the somewhat crazed-looking guitarist leading the "Saturday Night Live" band (1985-95). He also married Gilda Radner, worked with Dan Hartman and toured with Hall and Oates. That's probably the best way for George to have handled those folks.
Smith's stinging guitar is very evident on this track, but the guy was capable of other guitar stylings, having co-written the metal-moron "Wayne's World" theme song.
NUNS WITH GUNS

CATS IN THE KETTLE - Harry Chapin parody

Harry Chapin wrote good songs. Chinese food is safe 'n tasty. Cats are great.

So why do a parody about 'em? Oh, why not. Manic Larry Baker's "Cats in the Kettle" is short and sweet (and sour). A little tasteless, a little un-PC, but it doesn't really harm Harry, cats, or the reputation of Chinese kitchens.

With novelty songs, often taped off the radio or just tossed on P2P sites, the credit gets lost, or worse, ends up tagged as Weird Al Yankovic or Anonymous. That name again is: Manic Larry Baker.

Hear him quick as a cat Instant Download or Listen on Line

MORE DIANA RIGG & THE AVENGERS

"Mrs. Peel, We're Needed...on the Ill Folks Blog again!"
Gracing us with an obscure gem, Diana Rigg sings Sondheim! It's not easy for even the best singers to handle the intricacies...so bravo for this appealing performance. The other Diana Rigg song is still alive and well in the archives. Emma's replacement, "Tara King" (Linda Thorson), helps pads things out with her pair. Songs, that is.

Back in the archives you'll find a 4-pack of Honor Blackman. Honor Blackman never pretended to be a singer, but her solo songs were received well. She assumed Patrick MacNee would have no problems either: “Patrick said he had no sense of rhythm and couldn’t sing but we thought that was absolute nonsense until we actually got there and found it was absolutely true!”

You get the silly novelty hit "Kinky Boots," which is the least sexy song ever to have "Kinky" in its title. And also part of the download, a bright stereo rendition of "The Avengers" theme from the composer himself, Laurie Johnson. You even get some oddball theme song versions, including one that samples dialogue from John and Emma.
There won't be a time when Steed's words don't ring true: "Mrs. Peel, We're Needed."

1. Diana Rigg "Could I Leave You?"
2. Avengers (Disco Version)
3. Avengers "Peel the Reel" theme song with dialogue
4. Avengers (Magnetic Remix)
5. Avengers (Impulsion Remix)
6. Avengers (Laurie Johnson & Orchestra)
7. Linda Thorson "Here I Am"
8. Linda Thorson "Bad Time to Stop Loving Me"
9. Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman "Kinky Boots"

Emma 'bout ta download dis...
Update: This one timed out due to Rapidshare's "10 days of inactivity" purge. But...re-upped as singles...

KINKY BOOTS
DIANA RIGG "Could I Leave You"
LINDA THORSON "Here I Am"
4 Songs by Honor Blackman

DOODLES WEAVER

Unlike his brother Pat (president of NBC and father to Sigourney Weaver), Winstead Weaver looked like a "doodlebug" (his own mother's opinion!) and acted like one, being a cornball comic/singer all his life.

The dude named Doodles gained fame with a manic William Tell horse race routine on a Spike Jones novelty single. He did a sequel, "Dance of the Hours" as a car race. Doodles also loved spoonerisms, mispronouncing song lyrics in frantic gibberish till he'd clear his mind with a bellowing "OOOOH!" That, along with deliberately awful jokes, made a hit out of "Man on the Flying Trapeze." You can hear Spike Jones ask "Are you in voice, Winstead," at the beginning.

He worked with Jones on stage and on radio for many years, but was fired for a lethal combo of alcoholism and natural nutsiness. He had bit parts in movies, notably the 1940 version of "Li'l Abner," and in 1951 prevailed upon brother Pat to help him land a summer TV show on NBC which went nowhere. He turned up on "You Bet Your Life" as an unknown contestant. After Doodles admitted his profession was a comedian, Groucho sympathetically hoped he'd get somewhere with it. In 1965 Weaver briefly had a notoriously desperate 6-minute "Day with Doodles" syndicated kiddie show. Nothing worked too well.

Throughout the 60's The Dood took minor roles in sitcoms, from "Dick Van Dyke Show" to "The Monkees" to "Batman" (as "Crier Tuck). His curly hair, tubular head and large eyes helped the comic ambience of any scene, even if his lines were few.

The older he got, the more bitter and disillusioned he became. 1948, when he issued his novelty tunes with Spike, was probably Doodles' best year. 1983 would be his worst...in fact, despite of or because of alcohol and pills, be couldn't stand to live more than a few weeks into 1983.

Not too many years earlier, Doodles went into the studio one last time to make a solo disc. He offered some updated spooner routines and he even tried to work his dentures through his classic Feetlebaum routine...which was now more of a trotter than a horse race.

Here's a six pack with samples of Doodles' hit singles, radio tunes and final recordings. All Weaver wanted was to get some laughs, and even if you're not a corn-comedy buff, he Dood it. He succeeded mightily several times, and in every sense of the word, he was always trying.



Cop a Doodles... DO! (Right here)
Update: the mid-October "inactivity purge" doomed Doodles at Rapidshare, but here's an upload of two rarities for you, Doodles doin' it on the old Spike Jones radio show. No Rapidshare waiting, either. Instant gratification
TWO DOODLES!

TORCHBURN with JULIE LONDON

Carrying a torch, watching it burn. Having an aching heart. Or just heartburn.
Here's a selection of tortured torch songs and love-sick laments. "Do not fall in love, therefore. It will stick to your face." (A line from "Deteriorata").
It could be worse. On Del Shannon's version of "Big Hurt," there's a drum gunshot after "this time the big hurt will end." A bit too grim for this compilation. But there are plenty of old flames and smokey ruins here...
We turn to Julie London for songs of despair, loneliness, anger, and lovelorn lust. Ok, and we have to end with a little touch of vengeance. The first ten are from early in her career, when her whispery voice was best augmented by a simple trio. As she got a little bolder and better, she was more than capable of holding her own with a full band, as you'll hear on the back eight.
The tracks are from seven different albums.
1. The Thrill is Gone
2. Everything Happens to Me
3. Say It Isn't So
4. Gone With the Wind
5. What'll I Do
6. When Your Lover Has Gone
7. Don't Take Your Love From Me
8. Lonely Girl
9. All Alone
10. Mean to Me
11. Don't Smoke in Bed
12. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
13. There Will Never BE Another You
14. Get Set for the Blues
15. About the Blues
16. The Blues is All I Ever Had
17. The End of the World
18. I Wanna be Around

Listen to the ebb and flow of sighs, insensitivity and sorrows. O. Henry once said "Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating..." And in the next life he became a candy bar. Life is sweet after you're dead.


Who broke your heart?
Keep that Torch Light Burning

SPIKE MILLIGAN

Sapristi!


A tribute to the clown warrior Spike. Yes, Milligna, the well known typing error. At the time of his passing, he was acknowledged as the Godfather of British comedy, the man whose style could be heard and seen in everything from radio's "Round the Horne" to TV's "Monty Python's Flying Circus." First known as a member of The Goons (the only one of the three who wrote the radio trio's material) he went on to a busy solo career on radio, TV and via best-selling books.

One of the most complex and contradictory of comedians, Spike was the eye of a creative hurricane, capable of surreal jokes, aching poetry, whimsical nonsense and gut-wrenching letters to the local papers. Both manic and depressive, Spike was a Don Quixote who sometimes seemed to enjoy the battle and his victories, and was sometimes the victim of unseen and demonic enemies.

What you'll find here, are some vaudevillian and eccentric numbers written and mostly performed by him (one includes fellow Goons Secombe and Sellers). You know his name, now look up the download! John Lennon loved The Goons, and you might recognize some absurdist touches that later figured into John's more light-hearted numbers. Lennon even wrote a review in the New York Times for the first volume of Goon Show scripts.

Get Gooned on strange comic songs. With no further dew, try to digest this six-pack of strangely Spiked music:
Eeh Ah Oh Ooh
Ning Nang Nong (India Version)
Sewers of the Strand
I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas
I'm Walking Out with a Mountain
Finale
He's GOON BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Update: SAPRISTI! This one timed-out for inactivity.
Will try and re-up when I get some time. Rapidshare, you great leaping crabs, you!
In the meantime, at least here's a live instant download for...
SEWERS OF THE STRAND

GRETA KELLER - She was the Wan

A sweet sorrow will comfort you hearing the voice of Greta Keller (1905-1977). Like viewing a daguerrotype of a beautiful woman, listening to Greta's singing brings a sense of a past that must have been glorious. Too bad you, or she, was born at the wrong time.

Rather than wax melancholic over the wax, discover for yourself the nostalgic niche occupied, perhaps to waning interest, by the interestingly wan Greta Keller. Perhaps it's Keller's lingering German accent that makes her interpretations bittersweet, the tremulous attention she gives toward interpreting the lyrics, or just the aura she presents as a world-weary and aging chanteuse on a dreary tour through smoke-filled nightclubs.

Madame Keller's private life, as her voice suggests, included a variety of traumas. The worst was the murder of her husband David Bacon, apparently while he was patronizing a gay brothel. He was vaguely known at the time for portraying The Masked Marvel in a movie serial. Pregnant at the time of the tragedy, Greta's child arrived stillborn.

In 1940 she opened "Chez Greta" at New York's Algonquin Hotel. Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Tallulah Bankhead, Greta Garbo, Cole Porter and Maurice Chevalier all toasted her as one of the best. In 1947 she opened a new "Chez Greta" in St. Moritz Switzerland and in 1960 returned to New York for two years at the Waldorf Astoria. She continued to tour the world through the 60's and early 70's, evoking nostalgia and stoking libidos. Her rendition of "Married" can be heard in the 1972 film "Cabaret."

Yes, that's her grave. The floating saucer with Greta's portrait has been added, along with the notes on the grave behind hers. Dietrich was more theatrical, Hildegarde evinced more humor, but the tender Greta Keller has a way with a sad song, and here are some of her most uplifting downers.

These are recordings from the 30's and 40's:

These Foolish Things
I Apologize
Blues In My Heart
All of Me
Just Friends
Did You Mean It?
They Can't Take that Away from Me
Thanks for the Memory
Once in a While
You Leave Me Breathless
So Little Time
Lights Out
Mine Alone
Remember Me
The Very Thought Of You
and even more.
Poignant stuff...and it'll be yours quick-as-Rapidshare. Download Keller...
You Won't Re-gret-a It.

Update: this one died due to Rapidshare's infamous "inactivity" purge in mid-October. But here's one song, at least. Instant gratification and no wait via Box.net upload:
They Can't Take That Away From Me (or you)

A RUDE MARTIN BRILEY SONG

Martin Briley is often accused of being a misanthrope when not labeled a misogynist. He was always satiric and misunderstood.

Shorthand: cross Moon Martin and Randy Newman. But unlike Moon, Martin's melodies aren't stuck in the 50's. Unlike Randy, Briley has a streamlined (and very British) sense of his own cool.

This song is typical 80's rock, with Briley seeming to compliment his slut-du-jour, all to a frantic masturbatory farfisa-type beat (off). Yeah, yeah, he's the guy in the beret scowling during "You Ain't Worth the Salt in My Tears," one of the first good MTV videos.

On every album (ok, he made 3) there was one viciously up-tempo funny tune. This is from his second album. On his first, the tune was "I Feel like a Milkshake" and it was covered by Peter Tork of The Monkees.

"She has an open mind, she's sweet and kind, but best of all, SHE'S SO FLEXIBLE, she never has to bend to be accessible..."

SHE'S SO FLEXIBLE!

KILLED AS A SWAN

"She looked like a swan! So I killed her..."
Think you could get off with that kind of defense? Wait till you hear "Molly Bond."
It's a tragic traditional folk song resuscitated by the Oysterband, longtime Celtic rockers on decades-worth of indie labels.
The story begins with a warning to hunters "that delight in a gun." This hunter made a fatal mistake: "Her apron flew around her. I took her as a swan. And I shot my own darling at the setting of the sun."
Yes:
"I shot my own darling, and where shall I run?"
What else would he sing after killing a woman thinking she was a huge swan? "Swaneeeee, how I love ya, how I love ya...."
The good news is that a judge might acquit...if the dead woman's ghost visits the courtroom and insists it was all a tragic accident.
Good ol' Celtic spookiness, and a far cry from the more mundane hunting accidents in other songs, such as Johnny Cash's "I Hung My Head."
Ready, aim... DOWNLOAD....or listen on line.

ZACHERLEY - THE COOL GHOUL

Now nearing 90, and looking the same as he did when he emerged in the late 1950's as cult tv's undead "Cool Ghoul," John Zacherle is a legend. He spliced himself into the old horror movies he was hosting, created a low budget world of support characters (one was pretty much a huge slab of gelatin) and laughed at his own bad horror puns with a cheerful barking yock. He got the cover of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" without making a film (although his records were sold in the back pages), had a novelty hit via "Dinner with Drac" and even covered "Monster Mash." After influencing Vampira, Elvira and dozens of other would-be horror TV hosts he miraculously went from East Coast TV phenom to rock disc jockey on WPLJ in New York. Very cool! That's just the merest thumbnail sketch, because I lost the actual thumb I was typing with! Ha...ha...yock....
Here's a sample of vintage and recent Zach tunes. He may not mean as much if you didn't grow up with him, but let's see if he can put a Sardonicus-grin on the pusses of total strangers.
The lucky 13 download includes "Coolest Little Monster," "Sure Sign of Spring," "Transylvania PTA," "Graverobbing Tonight," "Formaldehyde" and even a cover of Tom Petty's "Zombie Zoo."
"Foam at the mouth via your RABIDshare download, my dear. Ha ha...."

BATMAN julie newmar frank gorshin

The 60's Batman show still packs some pow.
Here's an audio wallop: Batman stars, themes and tribute songs. Since books have actually been written about the show, there's no need to further explain things here, and since folks just want to download, I'll spare you my anecdotes about various cast members I knew and know.
"THE RIDDLER" by Frank Gorshin. He was the most manic and memorable of all villains. As an impressionist, he shared a classic "Ed Sullivan Show" with the Beatles. Without his personality the gags here would make anyone gag.
ILL FOLKS BAT-MEDLEY.Bearing in mind that a novelty tune can lose it's novelty even halfway through, here's an Ill folks montage that gives you a smooth sampling of: Adam West's overly bouncy "Miranda," a bit of Burgess "The Penguin" Meredith in a musical narration about his nemesis, and then Jan and Dean who washed up onto shore for "The Joker is Wild." It segues into the real Joker in a bit of dialogue from the show.
This bops and echoes into Cesar Romero seriously giving a "Thought for Today."
Holy Attention Deficit Disorder! See if you can last the six minutes! Not "seven minutes." You know what Irving Wallace figured was a much better way of spending seven minutes.
"JULIE NEWMAR" a tribute song! The purrfect alloy of beauty and brains, and the erotic and the comic, Julie is one of the most unique women on this or any other planet. She deserves a bit better than this effort from the dim 40 Watt band, but Walter Egan set the bar very high years ago with his humorous fanboy worship tune "Tuesday Weld."

Batty Ill folks! Instant download or listen on line. Bat-fan montage!
Julie Newmar tribute song Instant download or listen on line.
Frank Gorshin Offers bad jokes as The Riddler!

ILL FOLKS MUSIC REQUEST PHOTO

Here's Khan Jeh-Stet, miming his request for two Alan Parsons Project songs: "Eye in the Sky" and "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned." What a master of hand-eye-nose coordination.
Two songs in one download for you! Is this the missing link between music and mucous? Some say it is, some say it's snot.
These quick links don't last long so get this nine-minute epic instantly:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7u2dxc
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7Z5DS4JQ

TEEN TRAUMA & DRAMA

TEEN TRAUMA AND DRAMA
(Yes, the photo enlarges if you click on it. But do you want that?)
Death was an obsession with teens of the late 50's and early 60's. Morbid music and monster movies became a fad. While there have always been grim pop songs from "Gloomy Sunday" to "D.O.A." somehow, dying was just so much more entertaining, during this era!
The day the music died...was every day on the radio back then.
Bobby Darin snapped his fingers and sang of bodies oozing life. Heck, "The Cheers" recorded a motorcycle wreck song. How cheerful! The answer song to all these deathly singles, "Let's Think About Living," paled next to the morbid numbers that we all found as endearing as fresh flowers on a well-kept grave.
You get the usual motorcycle wrecks and grim songs of dead people ("Tragedy" by The Excellents, "Dead!" by Carolyn Sullivan) and even a few morbid and weird C&W ditties.
Here's Lloyd Price, Mark Dinning, The Shangri-Las, Twinkle, Jody Reynolds, Dickey Lee, Ray Peterson, The Cheers and more...
Use the comments feature to ruminate on faves I've left out (like "Laurie/Strange Things Happen" or "Ode To Billie Joe") or just download these downers and rest in peace:
1. Teen Angel
2. Tell Laura I Love Her
3. Endless Sleep
4. Patches
5. Last Kiss
6. Leader of the Pack
7. Dead Man's Curve
8. Black Denim Trousers
9. Terry
10. I Can Never Go Home Anymore
11. Stagger Lee
12. Tragedy
13. Dead!
14. Me and Little Andy
15. El Paso


Downloading this? "Look out, Look out, Look out!"

AM I BEAUTIFUL? AM I USABLE?

Those eyes, those lips...that voice?
We wish our screen goddesses could do it all. With us! If you're looking for perfection, stick it in your ear. See if the voices measure up to the bodies and faces. These women are fairly obscure ill folks as far as the music world is concerned.
Here's Tina Louise doing "I'm in the Mood for Love," Marilyn Monroe (arguably the prototype for Tina's "Gilligan's Island" movie star doing "I Wanna Be Loved By You," and Brigitte Bardot joined by Serge Gainsbourg on the "J'Taime" demo (later re-done with Jane Birken, perhaps more prone to surprised gasps and groans than BB).
Mamie van Doren duets with June Wilkinson, Jayne Mansfield does a "Big Bopper" answer song, and you also get Raquel Welch's attempt at singing.
Oh...and "Am I beautiful/am I usable" is copped from AFI's Davey Havok and the song "The Killing Lights."

RAQUEL WELCH
JAYNE MANSFIELD
TINA LOUISE
MAMIE VAN DOREN
MARILYN MONROE
BRIGITTE BARDOT

BOBBING FOR BASEBALLS

That former Phil Ochs rival BOB DYLAN has a fondness for Ill Folks...obscure, unfamiliar singers on the other side of fame. On his new radio series, at least half the numbers are intended to shine a light on these great talents. His baseball show includes people you probably never heard of: Buddy Johnson ("Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball"), Winona Carr ("Life is a Ball Game") and Johnny Darling ("Baseball Baby"). There are some famous folks, too, like The Treniers, Chance Halladay and the Teddy Brannon Orchestra.
In case you missed it, here's Bob narrating a neat collection of songs about the National Pastime. Too bad he missed a few like:
You Anaheim Angel You, Lay Lady Lay Down a Bunt, One Too Many Innings, As I Struck Out One Morning, Blind Umpire McTell and Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window And Get My Ball For Me?
Take Me Out to The.... BOB-O'-LINK

I WAS EXECUTED BY MY GOVERNMENT

Sometimes an obscure person becomes famous by getting executed. The four cases presented here led to songs that have immortalized the mere mortal.
What's your view on the death penalty?
Should it never be used? Is it better or crueler to let someone rot in a tiny cell? Perhaps the death penalty should be reserved only for cases of premeditated murder or mass murder, such as Lennon's killer or The Son of Sam (both residing rather comfortably in New York State).
The four cases here involve an alleged rapist who never killed anyone, a druggie who went nuts with a murderous boyfriend, a guy whose partner killed a cop, and a somewhat slow man who was innocent and framed by the real killer.
CARYL CHESSMAN (top left) was a career criminal, but his rap sheet had nothing on it similar to the masked "Red Light Bandit," who robbed motorists and sexually assaulted female passengers. Caught in a car with a red light (simulating a police car's light) and unwilling to say who was using the car besides himself, Chessman was convicted of multiple felonies including kidnapping (for dragging a woman out of a car against her will). In California, kidnapping could be punished by death. And it was. Chessman fought an amazing battle to stay alive and wrote a best-selling autobiography while on death row. After many years, he finally died because a secretary mis-dialed the warden's office and the latest stay of execution was received too late. Some say a rapist deserves death, and a career criminal is no loss. Two country songs challenged the death penalty in the Chessman case (as did celebrities around the world). Should Chessman have died?
KARLA FAYE TUCKER was white trash in Texas, a teen groupie with the Allman Brothers Band, later a heroin addict and prostitute. She lived in a slum where everyone did drugs, and a Harley dripping oil and stinking of fumes was safer in the house than outside. Karla hated the guy who owned the Harley, especially since he routinely beat his wife (a friend of Karla's). Karla and her latest boyfriend planned on wrecking the guy's bike, but after a binge of drugs, they beat the guy to a pulp, along with his latest girlfriend, who had been hiding in the darkness. In prison, Tucker was apparently "born again," and many insisted her early environment had much to do with her crime. If various bloody female followers of Manson could escape the death penalty, how about a reprieve for Karla? After 15 years on death row could anyone say she was the same person she once was? Her pleas for mercy were ignored by Gov. George W. Bush who declared: "Karla Faye Tucker has acknowledged she is guilty of a horrible crime. She was convicted and sentenced by a jury of her peers. The role of the state is to enforce our laws...May God bless Karla Faye Tucker and may God bless her victims and their families." The two songs here trace her pathetic life leading up to the crime. Should a messed up woman's one night of brutality mean execution?
In Great Britain, Tim Evans died in 1950 and Derek Bentley in 1953. Ewan MacColl wrote protest songs after the executions, focusing on the glaring injustices in both high-profile cases.
TIM EVANS (lower left), his wife and child, lived uncomfortably in a poor walk-up apartment. Their arguments were heard by a neighbor, Dr. Christie. When the police found the body of Mrs. Evans, and the child, Tim was long gone, on the advice of the good doctor. Frightened during interogation, and not having much to live for, he confessed. Then he recanted. Ewan Maccoll's brilliant song (alternately called "Go Down Ye Murderer") seems to follow, with justifiable vengeance, the execution of a murderer. Should Evans, with a previous clean record and protests of innocence, have gotten the death penalty?
Teens DEREK BENTLEY and Chris Craig were just a pair of Croydon punks. During a warehouse burglary gone wrong, they were stopped by a policeman. Craig waved his gun. Bentley shouted, "Let him have it, Chris." Meaning, hand over the gun? Craig chose the slang meaning, and shot the cop dead. He was a bit under the legal age for a hanging, but not Bentley. Though he had not fired the gun, Derek was deemed just as guilty as Craig. MacColl's song seethes over the boy's death while the chorus grimaces at the comic books and violent films that "educated" the young criminals. Elvis Costello re-visited the case and wrote his own version decades later. Should Bentley, or anyone, get the death penalty when they haven't actually killed anyone? Chris Craig served ten years in jail and has not been in trouble with the law since.


CARYL CHESSMAN - Ronnie Hawkins
CARYL CHESSMAN - Country Johnny Mathis
KARLA FAYE - Mark Knopfler
KARLA FAYE - Mary Gauthier
BALLAD OF TIM EVANS - Karan Casey
BALLAD OF TIM EVANS - Ivy League Trio
GO DOWN YE MURDERER - PADDY REILLY
BENTLEY AND CRAIG - Ewan MacColl
LET HIM DANGLE - Elvis Costello

WHICH WAY TO HAPPY?

Here's a bunch of songs of depressing, bitter, mordant and cynical songs for ill folks from lesser known ill folks and famous folks who found their bank accounts get lighter thanks to the dark material.
Since this IS the illfolks blog, there's no point adding well-known miserable folk like Leonard Cohen or Morrissey or Charles Aznavour, nor sensitive guys that killed themselves, or famous sad songs (that say so much).

The Television Personalities - Sick Again
You've never heard of them and you never will. That's 'cause they're sick. They also seem to have set their Casio keyboard to violin and accordion simultaneously, which will make your cat cry. Thanks guys, for the musical equivalent of an IV drip.

Anna Ternheim - To Be Gone
Anna's a depressed Swede who sings pretty tunes with suicidal tendencies: "Leave the body, leave the mind...I just happen to feel so alone....I just wanna be gone." Her accent is thick enough to make "body" sound "bawdy..." Sad girls ARE sexy, especially when they're trying to shuck off their mortal coil via a bossa nova shuffle.

Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - She Won't
A twangy dirge...a portent that Lee & Nancy Volume 3 was not going to be a hit. Did they know that their album would not even get a U.S. or U.K. release?

Mary McCaslin and Jim Ringer - Oh Death
Traditional folk music is as close to a death experience as you get in life.

Jerry Yester-Judy Henske - Mrs. Connor
Yester was briefly with The Association. Here he sings lead on a moody number with lyrics from then-wife Judy Henske: "When death comes for Mrs. Connor, he will lay his heavy leg on her and groan." Necrophilia at its best. No wonder Andrew Vachss is a Henske fan.

Anna Singt - Gloomy Sunday
The famous Hungarian suicide song, which did indeed lead to documented suicides continues to be covered by new generations of depressives. Anna and coffin-sized piano.

Thea Gilmore - Everybody's Numb
Get the zeitgeist...they will soon be selling a topical anesthetic you massage into the scalp. Thea has plenty more where this came from.

Pamela Morgan - It Ain't Funny
No, it isn't. This one's about the economic woes of fishermen...in an age when most fish is now farm-raised and bad for you.

Mary Gauthier - I Drink
It's almost cheating to include a country song like this, but Mary is a crossover artist. She's cross over country music, pop music, ballads, and most everything else. A balladeer for the mental dust bowl.


Mathilde Santing - Wonderful Life
With an opening guitar riff unwittingly referencing the start of "Suicide is Painless," Santing floats in to assure us, "no need to run and hide." Except this minor key ballad is as lively as a beached jellyfish. "Don't give up," Kate Bush sang, but she hadn't heard this kind of optimism.

Eva Cassidy - Ain't No Sunshine
Sad songs say so much...and so does the way there's been a cottage industry mourning a pretty blonde singer who died young.

Beth Nielsen Carpenter & John Hiatt - World of Hurt
The truth: "It's a world of hurt, nothin' works. It's a lonely little planet made of dust and dirt. Who'd ever think that in the midst of this, something as beautiful as love exists?" Yeah? For how long? See "Hurt" by Trent Reznor and look under "dirt, my empire of."

The Magic Numbers - Which Way to Happy?
Sort of a gay Leonard Cohen with a wan chick singing in the background, and a vibe of being totally wilted. Nice. All too often, artists now go from total unknowns to superstars via a debut album! But are they happy? No? Good.

Townes Van Zandt - Waiting Around to Die
No longer an accurate title.

Kendra Smith (of Big Star) - Holocaust
Why rhyme moon and June when you can open with: "Your eyes are almost dead. Can't get out of bed..."

Randy Newman - It's a Jungle Out There
As usual, he's tap dancing on the edge, and really, if you can't find humor in impending disaster, then you might as well be Morrissey. This pungent one minute theme song is for a TV show involving a germ-phobic Arab.




To reference Jann Arden and Sheryl Crow...Happy? If it makes you happy...
download here
And if you just want a quickie from Mathilde Santing...
WONDERFUL LIFE

PROCOL HARUM IN HELL

September 14, 2001 concert at the Hell Blues Festival, Norway.

Only two men remained from the original 1967 band. You see them here, in photos from the Hell concert. Singer/pianist Gary Brooker and Matthew Fisher are now locked in a legal dispute over Fisher's uncredited contribution of the famous organ solo that opens "Whiter Shade of Pale."

Procol's muscular rock music was in contrast to the ill lyrics of Keith Reid, whose Dylan-influenced words self-admittedly "wallowed in a morass" that darkly verged on pretentiousness. Their few chart hits involved a woman turning from ghostly to a "A Whiter shade of Pale" (dead) and the grim philosophizing over the corpse of a "Conquistador." Focused on destruction, torment and painful self-consciousness with mere glimpses toward nirvana, Procol's hardest rocking songs bubble in a cauldron of bile ("Piggy Pig Pig" and "Bringing Home the Bacon") and are steaming with wretched excess ("Whiskey Train") or angry angst ("Typewriter Torment"). Their prettiest songs tend to be eerie ("Salty Dog"), decadent ("Grand Hotel") or filled with semi-disguised put-downs ("Homburg"). There's not a song in this set that does not have an undercurrent of pessimism, anger or despair.

Any band critically praised for a blend of classical music, eclectic lyrics and R&B blues is bound to suffer, especially one with an intellectual name (Latin for "Beyond these Things") so Procol Harum remains beyond fame, often written off as a one-hit (or two-hit, counting "Conquistador") wonder. Concert Note: This is one of those times when The Commodore chooses to sing the "extra verse" omitted from the original "A Whiter Shade of Pale." Morbid Note: the band pronounces its last name "Horrum," closer to horror than a harem.

Procol Harum Live Concert? Go to... OH, it's HELL, Folks!

THE AVENGERS & GET SMART

Honor Blackman (see April 19th posting) was the only 60's femme spy to release a whole album: "Everything I've Got." Here's another song to honor Blackman. Plus...
Some contemporaries tried for the singles charts.
Barbara Feldon, known for a sexy growl in hair-care commercials, and then "Get Smart," made references to both via "99."
When Linda Thorson joined The Avengers, sixties in full swing, she swung. Tara King could do one thing better than Emma Peel: sing a pop song. Of course, Emma would never have considered such a thing.
Always the trouper, when Diana Rigg, actress, was required to be nude on stage, she was nude. When she was required to sing, she sang. "Forget Yesterday" was recorded in 1972 during her run in "Jumpers."
And later she sang the number below, "Could I Leave You" in a Sondheim musical.
It's a slim entry because if Anne "Honey West" Francis and Stefanie "Girl from UNCLE" Powers sang, they kept it a secret. Maybe in the shower, only...
Honor sings EVERYTHING I'VE GOT
Diana Rigg
Linda Thorson
BARBARA FELDON sings 99

ANGEL OF THE MORNING - A DOZEN ANGELS

12 versions of ANGEL OF THE MORNING

When premarital sex was still a very troubling "sin," this tune turned up, just a hot skip and a hump away from "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow." Progress: THIS girl thinks she can have a devilishly good time all night and still be an "angel of the morning."
Especially since a man wrote this: Chip Taylor, offering an alibi for chippies.
Saintly martyr Merilee's Rush to judge her one-night-stand:
"There's no need to take a stand for it was I who chose to start. I see no reason to take me home. I'm old enough to face the dawn...Just call me angel of the morning...Then slowly turn away from me."

Even Humphrey Bogart couldn't follow that instruction without busting a gut laughing. "You're good, angel, very good. Now I'll slowly turn away, and you can leave...and I'll change the sheets..."
More from this sanctimonious slut:
"If morning's echo says we've sinned. Well, it was what I wanted now. And if we're victims of the night. I won't be blinded by the light. Just call me angel of the morning."
Can I just call you a cab and sleep an extra hour?
"A pretty dirge, is like a melody..." Share a load with:
Chrissie Hynde
Merilee Rush (original and re-make)
Joya Landis
Barbara Jones
Skeeter Davis
P.P. Arnold
Shaggy
Juice Newton, etc. etc.
The song ends with this:
"I wont beg you stay with me. Through the tears! Of the days! Of the years!"
OK, bitch, bye!


Get lucky. Download the ANGELS

Update November 2011: A few songs have been re-upped individually:

NINA SIMONE
PERCY FAITH

25 WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND

Ever have a tune keep playing over and over in your brain?
That's 'cause...there are WINDMILLS in your mind. Really. And they respond especially well to catchy kitsch.
Seemingly put together as a homework assignment for Similes 101, "Windmills of Your Mind" offered spooky psychedelia via the French version of Mancini, Mr. Michel Legrand, and English words supplied by middle-aged hack lyricists Alan & Marilyn Bergman. They toss snowballs down a mountain and think the world is "like an apple whirling silently in space."
First line sets our theme:
ROUND.
The lyrics get so numbing Jazz singer Carmen Lundy mistakenly sings of a "clock whose hands are SLEEPING" past the minutes of its face.
The song seems to be saying that as endless as the world is, life isn't and love isn't.
Actual lyric variation: you have a choice of "when you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware that the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair," OR, "when you knew that it was over in the autumn of goodbyes, for the moment you could not recall the color of his eyes." The latter is represented here by Ms Lefeber.
Years ago, comedian Frank Fay made a living satirizing the lyrics of pop tunes like "Tea for Two." It's a cruel trick. A cheap trick. So we'll surrender any further impulse to insult.
Fact is, the song's circles and spirals and wheels are kind of mesmerizing, they are "words that jangle in your head" (a nod to Bob's Tambourine Man perhaps). Like some Dylan tunes, notably "Lenny Bruce," there are some good lines jammed against bad ones. In Bob's case, in that song, it was "they stamped him and they labeled him, like they do with pants and shirts" followed by the good "he fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts." Here, a cliche about lovers leaving footprints in the sand is followed by: "Is the sound of distant drumming
just the fingers of your hand?" Not too shabby. There are also some effective and eerie images: "Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own..." or "Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream." Like, you gotta like that.
Like, listen for yourself. Over and over.
You get 25 different versions (five are French, known as Les Moulins de mon Coeur) including Legrand, Frida Boccara, Dorothy Ashby, Mathilde Santing, Paul Muriat, James Galway and of special interest, the top 10:
1. Psychedelic and slow: Vanilla Fudge
2. Eerie border colic: Baja Marimba Band
3. Oliver Twists: Trinity Boys Choir
4. Disco Dizziness: Sally Anne Marsh
5. A gargle of goo: Jim Nabors
6. Swanky swinging: Judith Lefeber
7. Vintage French Fluff: Vicky Leandros
8. Scat with Scuffy Grapelli-style Violin: Carmen Lundy
9. Accapella Angst: The Lettermen
10. How Elton Might've Done It: Jose Feliciano

Go Dutch: Here's the WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND

For the full lyrics, homage to Dusty Springfield and a spooky photo, see: Lady Jayes's Page