Aimee Mann - a Dear in the Headlights

Still considered something of a cult item at 47, Aimee Mann's skeletal arms still strum some dark tunes, her hollow-eyes so haunting you'd think Edvard Munch painted her face for her. Both sultry and desultory, she isn't so depressed that she can't work up a certain amount of cranky energy when she plays, but the 5'11" crow-scarer can turn any venue into Alienation Row.
In case you somehow missed the Mann act, and are wondering if you should cross over state lines to see her, just download this live version of "Going Through the Motions." It's lovingly brought to you in perfect stereo. The song begins, "Something isn't right..." so how wrong can it be? Hear here, the mildly annoyed adenoids of Mon Aimee.
Goin' Through the Motions, LIVE Instant download or listen on line; no pop-ups, porn-ads or wait time.

JANE AIRE - "Call Me Every Night"

Jane Aire seemed part of the British Stiff invasion, and her Bronte-esque name pushed that image along, but she was really Jane Ashley from Akron, Ohio.
She bumped around with Kirsty MacColl and Rachel Sweet as a woman with Punk-Babe star potential, but after a few singles, one album, and a last 45 rpm in 1982, she was then, and remains now, an obscure but lovely collectors item.
If you remember her 1979 Virgin picture disk of "Call Me Every Night" fondly, then you're old enough to take this news: on December 2nd, she'll turn 51. While "Call Me Every Night" didn't vault her to the heights of another New Wave power pop star, Deborah "Call Me" Harry, you'll still catch a sweet air buzz from Jane's addictive single. Picture disk sound quality was never that great, but you'll still get the message; calling this chick every night was probably blissful phone sex. In the picture, that's not herpes, that's the spindle hole.
Gimme Aire Instant download or listen on line; no pop-ups, porn-ads or wait time.

KATHY DALTON & BRENDA PATTERSON 1974

Journey back to 1974, when Frank Zappa's Discreet label discretely ended the careers of Southern roots rockers Kathy Dalton and Brenda Patterson. The label's male roster included Ted Nugent and Tim Buckley, but the gals never had a chance. Managing a handful of releases (1973-75) the company dried up, releasing only a bit of Zappa stuff before getting zapped.
Kathy Dalton's solo album was actually released twice, the second time (the one you get here) with a song called "Long Gone Charlie" booted in favor of the new title track, "Boogie Bands and One Night Stands." The strategy paid off...22 years later when "Boogie Bands and One Night Stands" was picked for the soundtrack for the film "Sleepers" (nestled in between tracks by Frankie Valli, Dean Martin, Doris Day and The Beach Boys). Before going solo, Dalton, as Kathy Yesse, fronted the Daughters of Albion, a group that made one album produced by Leon Russell.
Hardly anyone mentions Kathy Dalton except when confusing her with Karen Dalton, the folkie with the damaged Billie Holiday voice who was around when Bob Dylan hit the Village, and disappeared into a haze of drug and alcohol problems, suffering an obscure and lonely death in 1993. At least her two albums are re-issued on CD.
The only KATHY Dalton singing you'll find on CD is her work on "Jump," the 1984 Van Dyke Parks album which featured her among various supporting singers.
In addition to Dalton's album, you get 3 bonus tracks...some of the best cuts from Discreet label-mate Brenda Patterson. The tracks are: "I'll Be There," "Crazy" and "I've Never Been a Fool Like This."
Brenda started the 70's on Epic with "Keep On Keepin' On," which included her cover version of "This Wheel's On Fire." Nothing ignited. In 1973, she joined the ill-fated Playboy Records label for an album that included "Bury Me Down By the River" by Maurice and Barry Gibb, the old Pitney classic "I'm Gonna Be Strong," and Paul Simon's "Congratulations." The 1974 Discreet album "Like Good Wine" was the end of the solo road.
A few years later she fronted The Coon Elder Band, which had a one-off deal with Mercury. The last track, and the last I've heard of Brenda, is a tune called "Grinnin' My Blues Away," and Brenda, wherever you are, in show biz or out of it, I hope you're still grinnin'.
Back at ya...Kathy Dalton and Brenda Patterson.
KATHY AND BRENDA

TOP BLOKES AFTER DEATH : Offensive EULOGY song

Shock-comedy. It's been a while since a novelty number got anyone upset: Tom Lehrer and "The Vatican Rag." Napoleon XIV and "They're Coming to Take Me Away." Some tunes from Monty Python, who are now old enough to be grandpas.
Here's "Top Blokes After Death," a eulogy to recently deceased (mostly Australian) celebrities. It was broadcast on the TV series "The Chaser's War on Everything." Not on "Saturday Night Live" or Howard Stern's not too Sirius radio show.
From lampooning the way people eulogize a bastard at his funeral, the song takes a giant leap into bad taste, noting all the celebs who became saints because they died:
"Princess DI was just a slut for sex, when they looked in the car wreck, her dress was wet with Arab semen stains..."
Have we forgotten all Diana did for charity? For a laugh, yes.
This blunt tune certainly hits targets that don't deserve it. Croc hunter Steve Irwin may have been a "cartoon" but he wasn't tormenting crocs for fun. He was a conservationist, and eulogies after his sudden and tragic death let people know just how good and caring this guy really was.
Then there's Moms Mabley who said: "You should say something good about the dead. He's dead. GOOD!"
That's the thrust behind most of the celeb names mentioned...Aussies who committed such sins as not scoring an important goal in a key match, or speaking their mind (as much as the singer here does).
Of course a eulogy is usually the first and last time a jerk gets any praise, and we all go back to talking trash before long. As Shakespeare said, "The good is oft interred with their bones," so our goofy-faced rake is really just having a nose-tweak over the fact that, even for a moment, somebody got attention that should've gone to, oh, him instead.
The lines about John Lennon? His assassination was a hurt that will never heal for many of us. He became a saint after death? I don't think so. He honestly debunked his celebrity in his lifetime, and today there's no shortage of bloggers who gripe that "Imagine" isn't a very good song, or that Yoko is keeping them from some imagined vault of Beatles treasures.
But...a quickly written snarky song intended to offend should be taken for what it is.
The author and singer rightly declared (as the controversy began) that they weren't concerned with how the dead celeb's friends and family would react. Comedians can't worry that they won't offend a small percentage of their audience. The singer even acknowledges this problem of self-censorship when, as he's about to include Belinda Emmett (who died of bone cancer at 32), a groan of protest from fellow cast-members arises. The singer reluctantly reigns in his evil fun.
Privately, comics will tell you of Steve Allen's formula: comedy=tragedy + time. When they don't get a laugh with some tasteless joke about Sonny Bono, Steve Irwin or Princess Diana, they mutter "Not enough time..."
Fans are still shaken over Belinda Emmett's tragic last months, so a "curb your enthusiasm" recital of her faults isn't that appropriate. Not for a woman who did seem to be good, courageous and selfless. On her deathbed, Belinda's last words were to her weeping sister: "Are you all right?" And, if you want to bother thinking about it, a "curb your enthusiasm" smack about most anyone's eulogy is misplaced, since after the eulogy people generally go back to remembering the evil the person did.
I have no idea about Peter Brock, Don Bradman, Anna Coren, some guy named Zemanek, etc. One fault of songs like this is not everybody gets the references, but I doubt the author ever thought his tune would gain notoriety around the world (just on the Diana, Irwin and Lennon lines!)
Here's the song written by Chris Taylor. It's performed with vaudevillian Lehrer-type piano work and a slightly Palin or Idle-ized delivery by Andrew Hansen.
Eulogy - Top Blokes After Death Instant download or listen on line. No wait time, porn ads or pop-ups.

ILL-USTRATED SONGS #9 : DOPPELGANGER Dory Previn

Once upon a time, the "art song" attempted to infiltrate the rock world. But despite the critical praise given Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Dory Previn and Phil Ochs in his "Pleasures of the Harbor" phase, artistic lyrics rarely bring in the big bucks. Check out what contestants gleefully remember on "The Singing Bee."

There will always be a stark tune here and there that might actually lead someone to hit replay, and then surf the Net for the lyrics. There will be a few odd crossover performers like Ute Lemper or Diamanda Galas around, and even a glaring spotlight for a guy like Don Henley to offer up "New York Minute" and mean it. Leonard Cohen's still puts out the black light, too.
But rock songs that could be considered art? Not many now. Not all that many successful ones way back when.
A long time ago, Dory Previn was the mad ex-housewife who kept a diary of dangerous lyrics that became songs. On a few, the lyric was so arresting and the symbolism so interesting that after encircling the ears, it could tighten around the brain. Here is one of them.
DOPPELGANGER No waiting time, porn ads or other tricks. Instant download or listen on line.

SEASIDE SUICIDE + Mark Sheridan

I knew an elderly actor, best known for grand guignol on film and on stage. He told me that the ooky-spooky Halloween brand of horror didn't amuse or interest him. Fans who might approach him calling themselves i-Gor or Karl Off or Lou Gosi, were just clueless idiots to him, and their stupid dress-up at a memorabilia convention only confirmed their Munster mentality, grown men clinging to a denial of death not child-like as much as childish.
"What the real horror is," he told me, "is not a spook face. It is beyond the face and, instead, is in the mind. I am not concerned with somebody posing in a graveyard and making grimaces with crayon on his face. What concerns me is what really awaits us after death and the terror of what our existence means."
As pessimistic and miserable as he often was, he didn't hasten things with suicide, although the last time I saw him — withering, unable to drink liquids, unable to speak, eyes wide on a sunken face half-obscured behind an oxygen mask, he was the living dead.
And so, as Halloween approaches, this particular blog offers no ooky-spooky novelty tunes that you've heard a million times, and no "bwa-ha-ha" pictures of trick or treat outfits. Instead, a typical Illfolks photo-collage (all pics on the site get larger when selected) and two songs about suicide. No aliens here, just the alienated. The real horror in the world of Poe, is found in a poem he wrote called "Alone."
Included here is a third song; a cheerful novelty. It just happens to come from a man who no longer heard audience laughter, which led to his ultimate despair.
For some, the lure of the waves leads to a watery grave. Walking into the sea is the topic for both Lesley Duncan and the appropriately named Bitter End Singers.
Duncan's dry-eyed and morose "Walk in the Sea" (written by Alan Hull) starts with loner complaints and drifts into pessimism: "think I'll go walk in the sea. Nothing much better to do. No, nothing for me. Not even you."
The Bitter End Singers received liner note praise from Tony Bennett: "The Bitter End Singers absolutely gassed me." And I didn't even know he was Jewish.
The album, tempting fate, was called "Discover the Bitter End Singers." The song, "A Song By the Seaside," is complex, and you'll need to acclimate. Frankly, it didn't get to me the first time around. Once the tangled, sea-weed murky melody line became familiar and I got used to the group's MOR-Mitch Miller approach, I began to get into the repulsive minor key discord that was intending to evoke turbulent seas, and I caught the dank spray of the lyric lines.
The seasick song is about a wife who misses her husband in the worst way: "One day when she cried all the tears she could cry, she ran from the house where the wild swallows fly. She walked to the ocean, she smiled at the foam. She walked in the ocean. She smiled at the foam..." And...you guessed it.
Will Holt wrote it. He's best known for "Lemon Tree," which seems like an old folk song but isn't. He also wrote that 60's variety show perennial called "One Of Those Songs." I remember he always had a kind of delighted quirk about telling people he'd written that song. In listing a few credits (for anyone who asked, "Oh, you write songs, any I would know") most everyone knew "Lemon Tree." When he'd follow it with, "And I also wrote 'One Of Those Songs'" it would naturally draw a blank. Then he'd sing the opening line: "It's just one of those songs that you hear now and then..." Ohhhhhh! THAT song...as images of Jimmy Durante flashed through their heads.
Holt wrote off-Broadway musicals. He was also half of the Holt & Jonah comedy team, and the highlight of their act was a Kurt Weill-inspired 8 minute mini-musical parody of Hollywood called "Movieville." In other words, Holt had some cabaret sensibilities, so instead of a folk song, here's something far more dramatic. It's sort of what you might expect of Sondheim if he was writing folk songs in his precocious early years, instead of episodes of "Topper."
And yes, the "Bitter End" refers to the Greenwich Village club. The group (three men, three women) included two guys who were in The Ivy League Trio, and the always provocative Nancy Priddy (mother to Christina Applegate, and already mentioned on this blog in regard to her solo album).
Now, that odd looking guy on the right...Mark Sheridan.
Here's a bit of irony for you. You might vaguely know of a sprightly British Music Hall song called "I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside." Mark Sheridan recorded it in 1909, one of several hits he had during his most productive period (1909-1911). The tongue-twister was resuscitated by Basil Rathbone when he impersonated a vaudeville singer during a light moment in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."
The eccentric Mark Sheridan, in top hat, with wacky bell-bottoms strapped to his knees, twirling an umbrella, had years of success. He, his wife and family toured the U.K. again and again. But at the age of 50 he became increasingly depressed and considered retiring from the stage. He recorded one single in 1912, nothing in 1913, one side in 1914, and just one more in 1915. With no more song successes, he counted on stage roles to sustain him.
He played a comical Napoleon in a show called "Gay Paree." The morning reviews from the Glasgow papers were negative, and Sheridan was positive there was no hope. You'd think that he would've gone to be beside the seaside, either to gather up his courage, or walk into the ocean. Instead he took a tram over to Kevin Grove Park and shot himself. Your download is far less lethal, and still quite a lot of fun.
Leaving his Mark: Beside the Seaside
Bitter End Singers: Song by the Seaside
Walk in the Sea: Lesley Duncan

Ill-USTRATED SONGS # 8 : CHEAP LOVE Juice Newton

What if they mated? Listen, not everyone's a raving beauty. It didn't stop Ben Stiller from making movies or Sarah Jessica Parker from becoming a sex symbol.
Two of my favorite singers could be considered a bit strange in both looks and vocals. Critics have considered Del Shannon's voice to be a little harsh.His octave range was something else again, since he was capable of a literally haunting falsetto. Physically, a charitable pronouncement would be that he had brooding good looks.

As for Juice Newton, I don't think critics have considered her at all, but she possesses such a beautiful nasality, you'd want to kiss her right on the beak. Unlike Willie Nelson, the girl can also belt, and on her show-stoppers in live performance, she can grab and sustain a note with exquisite pleasure and pain. Physically, some might consider her to have the flinty charm of a pretty, and pretty work-weary waffle house waitress.
Over here at the illfolks blog, we'll just say that Del Shannon, the Poe of Falsetto, is the dark horse Dark Knight of pre-Beatles pop, who was also the first to cover a Beatles tune Stateside, and produced great work in the 70's and 80's, even if this later work was unjustly neglected in his lifetime. And still is. He was also the writer for most of his hits, and also wrote songs that became famous for others, like "I Go to Pieces" for Peter & Gordon.
As for Juice Newton, she's as quirky as a breakfast of orange juice and Fig Newtons, but even sweeter. Known primarily for her cover of "Angel of the Morning," she can rock out with the best. She's also perked the world up with a brand of country-pop so comfortable you might forget it's on, or what it took to craft it.
From a live Juice Newton concert, she covers the Del Shannon-written "Cheap Love" and then sinks her teeth into one of her fruit chews, her niftily crafted minor hit, "Love's Been a Little Bit Hard On Me."
Cheap Love/Love's Been a Little Bit Hard On Me

Joey Bishop sings Hank Williams

I'd like to say that Joey Bishop, who died the other day, will be missed. But to be honest, I doubt it. Most barely know him for a) being a member of the "Rat Pack" and b) having the talk show that used Regis Philbin for an announcer.

I think Joey was more than a little bitter about this in his reclusive final decades, but there wasn't much he could about it. His sitcom was released on DVD but what was funny 40 years ago, with fans visiting an old friend out of habit each week, can seem less than amusing out of context, watching characters you need to live with a while in order to like. Well, nobody's watching Danny Thomas today, either.
I suppose the apt phrase for Joey is: "you should've been there." That's the phrase he used in autographing a vintage photo of himself with the Rat Pack. Only in my case, I couldn'ta been there, since they didn't allow toddlers into casinos. I do remember him as a good stand-up comic. He was a pioneer of the Steven Wright school of glum deadpan. One of his gags was about how he was a poor kid. He had to use his brother as a sled. He slid down the hill on his brother so often, his brother became his sister.
Joey not only wrote much of his own material, he was the guy responsible for much of the "ad-libs" Frank, Dean and Sammy used during their stage act, and wrote most of their special material.

Joey's two years competing with Johnny Carson is probably forgotten by most. One thing that got me conversing with Joey, was to thank him for all his support for Jimmie Rodgers, the singer who had hits with "Honeycomb," "Sweeter than Wine," and later "Child of Clay." Rodgers might've had had more hits except for a mysterious highway beating where the hits just kept on coming.
Somebody...mob goon, irate hubby, whatever, followed his car, impersonated an officer, pulled him over, and nearly knocked his brains out. Joey, fairly somber even on a good night, told his viewers about it, and kept up regular reports on the singer's health, something unheard of for a late night talk show. Jimmie recovered, and picked up the fragments of his career as slowly as doctors picked out fragments of his skull. I wanted Joey to know that along with his stand-up and some of his films, his kindness and concern for Jimmie wasn't forgotten.
Joey never issued a stand-up disc, but for some reason, decided to make a country and western singing album. It seemed like a joke, and to many, it's one of those "haw haw, nudge-nudge" bad celebrity vocal albums. I think Joey's love of C&W was sincere. There were a lot of people back then that liked Joey Bishop as a friend, and bought his record for the same reason they'd buy any friend's vanity project: just to hear a non-singer live out his fantasy. I'm sure that his fans listened with a grain of salt, and maybe some cotton in their ears. But it's no worse than anybody quietly singing along to instrumental tracks they like.
Anyone buying it had to expect he wasn't about to rival Jimmie Rodgers, or Frank or Dean or Sammy. (He probably sang better than Peter Lawford).
Joey was 89.
Ripped from the vinyl, here's Joey's soft-serve echo chamber tribute to Hank Williams, a double dip of "Cold Cold Heart" and Cheatin' Heart" and listen for his little lounge-cool put-down to the chick at the end.
COLD CHEATIN' HEART

GINA GERSHON - Here Pussy Pussy Pussy

Gina Gershon's "In Search of Cleo" turns out to be...the original cast album for her "off Broadway" show. Maybe. Sort of. I saw her perform it recently, and I'm still not sure.
As mentioned a few weeks ago on this blog, Gina's album is an odd mix of honky-tonk, ballads, one catchy rock number ("House of Woe") and some designated drivers intended to bring in her campier fans, including the opener, "Lucky Lips." That Gina-appropriate tune is not on her CD, by the way since it's a cover of a Ruth Brown classic. Elizma Theron's version on her CD "Lapaside" is closest to how Gina does it.

"In Search of Cleo" is an 80 minute show...a dramatic (sound effects, off-stage voices) monologue about her search for her lost black cat, a male named Cleo who has an effeminate purr. Her story periodically segues into songs that don't mention the cat, don't push along the plot, and seem to be there because she's not quite a monologist and doesn't have a full concert of original songs.
The great "House of Woe" arrives after a tense four-minute prison phone call as a male con-artist (nicely voiced by Gina) seems to have a clue to where to find the missing feline. Anyone paying attention to the lyrics (I think that might only be me) would see that the song has nothing to do with the story, but the tone of her singing hits and holds a nice note of rueful, cynical depreciation for human nature.
The audience didn't seem to care if the songs matched the spoken passages or vice versa. At times they totally missed a lot of Gina's jokes (like the one about staying up late at night creating an "ambient environment" by taking Ambien). What they did like, was Gina. Did it really matter what else was going on? No, not really. That was Gina Gershon, live, 3D, just a few feet away from us.
Through the 80 minutes, Gina held center stage with a defiant cool, not breaking a sweat, and not taking herself too seriously as she played the ukulele for a few numbers, twanged a jew's harp, and donned electric guitar without pretending it was difficult or erotic to play one. Her back-up band served her well, as did the obligatory racially mixed and muddled backing trio of bosomy babes dancing and sometimes singing along. They were most evident on "Pretty Girls on Prozac," the intended showstopper.
Gina did a good amount of cursing during the show but, despite all the talk about her cat, resisted even a single "pussy" joke. After her encore, as the lights softly came up, the venue did play "Pussy Pussy Pussy," the ribald lost cat 78 rpm novelty by the old C&W swing band the Lightcrust Doughboys. "Here pussy pussy pussy" isn't how Gina tried calling Cleo (how she did it was a vocal surprise all its own...as one might expect from the woman who voiced the cartoon version of Catwoman).

Since you already got "House of Woe" some weeks ago, and posting a second track from her CD would be rude, you get...yes...the ruder "PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY' by the Lightcrust Doughboys. "Is this your cat?" "No, my pussy has no stripes, besides, it ain't never smelled like that!"
PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY

HEY MRS. PEEL - and CATHY and TARA

"She stood in my living room holding a gun on me, saying 'How could we let you go free?' Hey Mrs. Peel!"
Is the subject of The Cretones' early 80's tune "Mrs. Peel" really the spy from The Avengers? "We set up a surveillance...supported quite discreetly by the CIA..."
Yes and no. The song might be going for a contrast between TV spy glamour and the real thing, or taking a daydream about Diana Rigg into the day's cold war headlines.
Whatever, the tug-job chorus is clear enough: "Hey Mrs. PEEL! Hey Mrs. PEEL!"
The Cretones, led by Mark Goldenberg, were a perverse band during their short career, capable of turning peculiar thoughts into acceptable new wave pop. More acceptable as sung by someone else. Their version of "Mad Love" didn't make it, but Linda Ronstadt's cover did. Linda also recorded Mark's song "Justine." I have a Japanese CD Mark did a while back, "The Spiders Web," and he's just recorded a new solo effort (details at his dot.com). He's been Jackson Browne's lead guitarist since 1994.
Since the average Rapidshare or Megauload links tend to die after four or six months, especially if folks don't go back into the archives here, I'm adding a few old favorites that had previously been posted: "Could I Leave You," a Sondheim number sung by Diana Rigg, "Kinky Boots" as done by the original Avengers duo of Honor Blackman (Cathy Gale) and Patrick MacNee (John Steed) and "Here I Am," performed by Linda Thorson (Mrs. Peel's replacement, Tara King).
MRS. PEEL
KINKY BOOTS
DIANA RIGG SINGS
HERE I AM: LINDA THORSON

OL' TURKEY BUZZARD - David Letterman Fave

For some "wild and crazy" reason, non-sequiter audio clips of "Ol' Turkey Buzzard" began turning up on Late Night with David Letterman. And you thought only illfolks championed obscure tunes.
The song was part of the steady rotation of goofing around, including an inept blindfolded psychic trying to figure out a brand of sandwich, shouted slogans about pants, and a fat guy turning up to give Dave the (blurred) finger while shouting (expletive deleted) "...YOU."
A few nights ago, Feliciano himself guested to sing his non-hit (as pictured above). He's just put out a new album. Too bad Ol' (aka OLD) Turkey Buzzard isn't on it.
Jose flipped his bird during the opening of the fairly tedious movie "MacKenna's Gold," a plotless "let's find the treasure" hunt. Aside from the few scenes involving Hesh-ke the homicidal Indian girl, the film meandered like an old mule lost in the Mojave. As the movie began, an ominous vulture circled around, while Jose's symbolic lyric hinted that death awaits, hovering, ever-present. And sure enough, about two hours were subsequently killed.
And "network time killers" is a Dave fave. Months ago he kept running an audio clip of Renee Zellwegger saying "If you need help, here I am," and before "Ol' Turkey Buzzard" he was playing that dumb horse-ghost tune "Wildfire." He still has a sound effect of a window shattering every time he spins a blue card toward the back wall, but who knows, this may be a secret homage to Nick Lowe and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass."
Here's your download...not just the original "Ol' Turkey Buzzard" as it appears in the movie, but Feliciano's Spanish language version.
And why the usage on Letterman's show? Just another way of saying life is a joke...one that you often don't get.
OLD TURKEY BUZZARD

ELSA LANCHESTER - BABY GOT BACK!

In honor of Pixelmutt's return here's "I'm Glad To See Your Back," as performed by Elsa Lanchester, better known as (all together now) The Bride of Frankenstein.
Students, long before Mrs. Laughton was temptingly stitched then attemptedly hitched to Mr. Karloff, she was a nude model, the star of "Peter Pan" on the British stage, the flame-haired darling of bohemians and intellectuals, and well known for singing risque novelty tunes.
26 years after her dual role in "Bride of Frankenstein," Elsa debuted on Broadway in a one-woman show, singing, among others, "I'm Glad to See Your Back." The arched "Back" along with tunes such as "Somebody Broke Lola's Saucepan" and "If You Peek in My Gazebo" had audiences tittering immoderately.
Elsa recorded "Songs for a Shuttered parlor" and "Songs for a Smoke Filled Room" (on the Hi-Fi label) with narration by Charles Laughton. In a decision that probably had him rolling awkwardly in his grave, these two albums were re-issued as "Bawdy Cockney Songs" and "More Bawdy Cockney Songs" (via Tradition) without him. Elsa's other two original albums were on Verve, now a division of the Universal-MCA cartel.
Return to those double-entendre days, as lovely Elsa Lanchester describes being glimpsed in her dressing room by a suitor who likes what he sees:
"Your face may be your fortune, but I like a different view. I'm glad to see your back..."
ELSA LANCHESTER SINGS Instant download or listen on line. No porn ads, pop-ups, waiting or code numbers.

OCT 9 - John Lennon and ELEANOR MCEVOY

It was the night of October 9th, three years ago. Mid-way into her set, Eleanor McEvoy did what I was hoping she'd do...sing "Last Seen October 9th."
By way of preface, expecting her song title for an answer, she asked the audience, "Anyone know what day this is?"
From my ringside seat, I answered, "Yes...John Lennon's birthday."
"Is it?"
"Yes...October 9th."
"Really. I didn't know that..."
Eleanor then explained that she rarely performed this particular song, but being October 9th, it was a fitting night for it. And while it's about a person gone missing, not someone assassinated, for me and for perhaps others in the crowd, the song evoked John's image, in its quiet lines about life's fragility and the emptiness that goes with loss.
This simple, stark song is about a missing person and one of those sad, "last seen..." signs that families nail to trees and tape to lamp posts...an act of futility dressed as hope.
After the show, I mentioned to Eleanor that home-made "last seen" signs, xeroxed with a snapshot of the missing loved one, were vivid on bus shelters and lamp posts and in store windows after 9/11, and stayed up until the rains and wind mottled and bent them, and the faces and names on them were faded and streaked. One of the nice things about having a CD, is you have the artist's complete vision, including the CD booklet and lyrics. You also have something that can be autographed. It's reproduced here, amended a bit.
"Last Seen October 9th" appears on "Yola," Eleanor's first album after going indie. Her first CD (Geffen) had the hit, later covered by Mary Black, "Only A Woman's Heart"). She then recorded two CDs for Columbia. Her latest album, appropriately titled, is "Out There." She performs mostly in her native Ireland.
Classically trained, McEvoy's music can paint images without words ("The Rain Falls" and "Days Go By" live up to the titles, even before she starts singing). Her lyrics, deceptively simple, etch deep, such as "Sophie" (about an anorexic). Unlike country-woman Sinead O'Connor, Eleanor's palette is somberly hued, but doesn't flare into the histrionic. Perhaps it's that lack of flash that has won her critical acclaim rather than fame. Each McEvoy CD in its jewel box, is like any woman's jewel case...it holds treasures, some obvious, some fragile, some sentimental, some faceted so skillfully they can shine in new ways every time they are given the chance.
Remembering John Lennon, 9/11, and all the lost ones "last seen" on a home-made poster, here is
OCTOBER 9th Listen on line, no pop-ups, "you have won 2 ipods" scams, or porn ads

IVA ZANICCHI - FILLED UP WITH BEATLES

Who doesn't like the music of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison...
chicks who look like hookers...
outrageous Italian accents.....

In other words, geddya tootsie-frootsie Beatles, here, thanks to Iva Zanichhi's great medley of their hits!

"Yesterday" is way too emotional to be sung in anything but Italian, so after the opening word, Iva does just that. From there, her olive-oiled voice slides into a fervent "Let It Be" sung in English with perhaps some vocal coaching from the ghost of Chico Marx. The violins sag and segue into "Michelle," just to add a little lesbian interest to the mix. If you're thinking "Omigod" by now, then enjoy "My Sweet Lord," which is steel-belted from a lady who can really pour out molten-hot high notes.

Born January 18, 1940, Iva began recording at 25, and won the San Remo song contest in 1969. She averaged an album a year from 1970 to 1988. She's slowed in the past two decades ("Come Mi Vorrei" in 1991 and "Fossi un Tango" in 2003).

Illfolks has lovingly pulled the Beatles medley from the original vinyl (there was also one for Burt Bacharach) and stuck Ringo Starr's head on the body of some colpito al cervello testa dei pesci posing with Iva circa 1965. (Don't bother to look it up; loosely translated, I called him a brain-damaged fish head).
Viva Iva! Beatles Italian style, download or listen right now. No pop-ups, porn or code-words to type.

BOB NOLAN - That Old Outlaw...TIME

"Now as I go along, he steals from me.
My way of life. My woman's love. My peace of mind.
If I could see him I'd hit him. If I could reach him I'd kill him.
That old outlaw...Time."
This is just illfolks reminding you that one day your download will be six feet deep.
In 1979, Bob Nolan, one of the original "Sons of the Pioneers," emerged from long retirement to cut "The Sound of a Pioneer."
A year later, June 16, 1980, he was dead. Like most C&W vocalists who didn't get into a car or plane accident, his passing was little noticed by the mainstream press.
Your download song "That Old Outlaw Time" is from that album.
Unlike Johnny Cash, who held legendary status late in life, knew he had a death sentence just months away, and made the most of songs such as "The Man Comes Around" and "Hurt," Bob Nolan probably thought this was a comeback album, not a farewell. Although, you never know, the old cowboy reads these lines as if there's a cold hand on his shoulder:
"This shadow I can't seem to shake is not flesh and blood. This is a stranger each man faces in his own mind; filling him with fear and doubt. And behind it all, is that old outlaw: Time." Karloff couldn't have narrated it better.
"No way to win...no way to win...against that old outlaw...TIME."
BOB NOLAN Instant Download or Listen on line. No pop-ups or porn ads.

MR. SANDMAN in SWEDISH by a girl named SIW

Here's "Mr. Sandman" in Swedish. Considering it can be dark and gloomy in Sweden for a long stretch of the day, Siw offers a pretty short and happy nighty-night here.
Siw Malmkvist, now 70, first achieved fame representing Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1960. Adept at German, she represented West Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969.
Over the years Siw's expanded from pop singer to stage star, appearing in a variety of roles, including "Sugar" (the musical version of "Some Like it Hot") and "Nine" (the musical inspired by "8 1/2"). Just a few years ago, she and Thorsten Flinck had a hit with her Swedish version of "Where the Wild Roses Grow" (originally from Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue).
Siw has recorded hundreds of tunes in Swedish and in German (and a few other languages as well). Once in a while a slab of her vinyl has turned up in America with her perky visage on it, and it's hard to resist (thus, this rip from the original vinyl.) And yes, that lips-parted photo (is she singing or miming for something) could give a sand man wet dreams.
MR. SANDMAN IN SWEDISH Download or listen on line. No pop-ups or porn ads.

ANNA NALICK : BREATHE (live version)

Unlike Lindsay Lohan, Anna Nalick can sing "Breathe" and doesn't need to have a tattoo of the word on her hand. Some find her hotter than Lindsay, too.
While the illfolks blog is more concerned with obscure performers, stars down on their luck, the deceased, and other unfortunates, it's important to boost new talent that is either unknown or not getting much attention.
After the release of her first album, everyone wondered what Anna would do next. People are still wondering. In this strange age, people have big hits with a first album, but fans develop ADD and don't care about the next. Fiona Apple had a slump with her sophomore effort, Dido's second was considered formulaic, Keane's second album tanked...So, while waiting,here's something to either introduce you to Anna Nalick or reacquaint you with her. It's a sterling live version of "Breathe" I lovingly filched and digitized from a TV appearance. That's devotion.
"An hourglass glued to the table..." yeah, Anna, time passes slowly while waiting for the next album...
BREATHE (Live Version) Instant Download or Listen On Line. No porn ads, pop ups or code words

ILL-USTRATED SONGS #7: SEPTEMBER SONG

It's September...the perfect time to revisit "September Song," a wistful vignette that describes the time of year when women give up short skirts and dirndl down due to the autumn chill.
That's in the lyric...isn't it? Well, when Maurice Chevalier sings, you can't be sure about half the words, and it doesn't really matter. He was quite the chevalier (that's French for horseman). He had such charm. He could probably stow away on a boat and get past customs just by singing a song...
"Oh...Chevalier, huh..."
Note the few little scratches in the vinyl at the song's poignant end, which also recalls a fragile era...where if you handled the friggin' vinyl the wrong way it was marred for life.
SEPTEMBER SONG by Chevalier Instant download, or put on an outrageous French accent and sing along on line.

THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT - WIMOWEH - MBUBE

Give props to Jews and Italians! They made a hit out of "Mbube" an obscure ethnic chant and turned it into "Wimoweh" an irritating musical windshield-wiper of a folk song. 

Then turned those tunes into the enduring hit "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." 

Below you get a crapload of versions...four MBUBE, four WIMOWEH and enough LION SLEEPS TONIGHT to keep a zoo awake till morning.

Where...Excedrin users ask, did this musical plague come from?


 
Answer: Africa. 1939
Solomon Linda wrote and recorded "Mbube" (a word for "Lion") with his group the Evening Birds. Guess what. Like so many artists of any color, his record label only paid him for recording the song. No royalties. Of course in South Africa, where blacks could not own property (or copyright) Solomon was doubly cursed. 

An alleged 100,000 copies of "Mbube" sold in Africa over the course of a decade, but the song was too ethnic to make it off the continent and onto national radio stations. It was up to "ethnic explorers" to hunt for exotica, be it Delta blues or African chants.

1952: A breed of white people, called "Folkies," began discovering "world music." Over at Vanguard and Decca, there was The Weavers and the duo of Marais & Miranda, both interested in hipping the world to African music. Marais & Miranda popularized "Marching to Pretoria," while The Weavers chose "Wimoweh."

Wimo-what?? 

Pete Seeger and his friends mis-heard "Mbube" as "Wimoweh." Seeger explains what the word means: "Legend says, Shaka The Lion [a Zulu warrior] didn't die when Europeans took over...he simply went to sleep, and he'll wake up some day." 

"The lion sleeps" is not musical accompaniment to a Rousseau painting. That line, pretty much the translation of "Mbube," meant that one day, the French, Dutch and anyone else inhabiting Africa would go away and stop messing things up. Thus, leaving things to guys like Idi Amin, or the current maniac tribesmen who allow AIDS, murder, poaching of animals, the stealing of diamonds mass starvation, and spam e-mails from Nigeria. Oh, and Boko Haram.

Happily, most everyone who heard "Wimoweh" merely had a jolly excuse to shout "Wimoweh," and not have any idea what it meant. Same deal with one of The Weavers' first hit songs: "Tzena Tzena Tzena." 
 
The Weavers were produced by Gordon Jenkins, and Rolling Stone described the result with breathless delight in their May 25, 2000 issue: Jenkins' "arrangement of "Wimoweh" was a great Vegas-y explosion of big-band raunch that almost equaled the barbaric splendor of the Zulu original. Trombones blared. Trumpets screamed.  Strings swooped and soared through Solomon's miracle melody. And then Pete (Seeger) cut looks with all that hollering and screaming. It was a revolutionary departure from everything else the Weavers had ever done...His version was faithful to the Zulu original in almost all respects save for his finger-popping rhythm, which was arguably a bit white for some tastes but not entirely offensive...Seeger passed with flying colors, bawling and howling his heart out, tearing up his v ocal cords so badly that by the time he reahed age seventy-five he was almost mute..." 



Unfortunately, while listeners were enjoying this folk-tribute to black African music, America was undergoing the "Red Scare." Pete Seeger was labeled a Commie, and "Wimoweh" and The Weavers got blacklisted. The song fell from the charts and the group's music was banned by many radio stations. "Wimoweh," via cover versions, continued to amuse listeners, and The Kingston Trio performed it on their huge selling "Live from the Hungri i" album.

In 1961 Italian producers Hugo (Peretti) and Luigi (Creatore), a lyricist named George Weiss, and The Tokens lead singer Jay Siegal put together a little miracle called "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The quirky tune was multi-racial, using African rhythms, doo-wop, falsetto, and a female's soaring variation on classical "vocalise." Welcome in any stack of 45's that included "The Witch Doctor" or "Quiet Village" fresh lyrics pushed the literal lion imagery while the music and vocals erected a Brill Building in the South African veld. For an added twist, Frenchman Henri Salvador recorded "Le lion est mort ce soir," and there have been plenty of other nutty versions since (many in your zip file). 

In 1962, Solomon Linda died. He had almost no money. His wife and children lived in Soweto in a dirt-floor shack where a mash of corn was the usual meal, and a great treat would be...an egg. Meanwhile, back in the States...

Catchy, obnoxious and fascinating, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" has endured for over 40 years, dragging in its wake, the legends of "Wimoweh" and "Mbube," two songs that almost nobody would want to hear more than once. Thanks to its use in Disney's mammoth hit "The Lion King," Solomon Linda's family was able to be the lion and take a bite out of a big, fat cash-cow.
Racism? Nah, it's the music business, that's all.
 
As with "Tom Dooley," if there was no name on it, it was assumed to be public domain. If you didn't file a lawsuit (as the "Tom Dooley" guy did) you didn't get paid. Seeger: "The big mistake I made was not making sure that my publisher signed a regular songwriters’ contract with Linda. My publisher simply sent Linda some money and copyrighted The Weavers’ arrangement here..." Which isn't so unusual. Matthew Fisher had to wait 40 years before he got a co-write credit on "Whiter Shade of Pale. " To use the vernacular, "shit happens." Before Linda's family sued Disney, the twisty path of royalties tended to go to the Weavers, to George Weiss (if the song was sung and his "in the jungle, the mighty jungle" line used), and to the original South African record label (a division of Decca).

The fact remains that Solomon Linda's song would be nothing but a footnote if not for the way it was re-written and re-produced by a very commercial bunch of professionals as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." But hear the evidence yourself.

Are we so much more open to "world music" today? No. Whatever the music might be...a Swiss yodel, a polka, a Gamalan monkey chant or "Mbube," it ain't gonna chart if it ain't commercial. To put it another way, Paul Simon sells a lot more records than the people he used on "Graceland" or "Rhythm of the Saints."

Most of you will continue to spin "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" a lot more than "Mbube." If you want to call yourselves racists, go ahead. That's the easy word thrown at Pete Seeger and The Tokens. 

Your reward for reading all of the above, or reading none of the above:
A whole lotta Mbube, Wimoweh and Lion Sleeps Tonight, and guess what, on this download, nobody gets paid. Fair is fair. 

UPDATE: the link is long out of date. I was going to to upload some of the tracks individually for you...after all, this IS an educational blog...but all of it is streaming on YouTube. (And there are ways of pulling the mp3 off a YouTube video so you can keep it for your very own, including convert YouTube to Mp3 websites).  

The TOKENS - The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Glen Campbell guitar version - WIMOWEH

Desmond Dekker ("The Israelites" guy) Reggae-Rocks "WIMOWEH" 

Bizarre Afro-Big Band version: YMA SUMAC and MARTIN DENNY

TV Insanity: Dusty Springfield ("The Springfields") Pretend to be Afrikaaaaaaans

The Weavers - WIMOWEH

YouTube: Solomon Linda's 1939 version, MBUBE

Mindy McCready Gets a Year In Jail

OK, who has done more time, Johnny Cash or Mindy McCready?
Mindy, and she's been sentenced to more.

Jail's just part of the tragedies, mistakes and miseries of this "old school" country singer, who was hospitalized after being found unconscious at a Holiday Inn, wrote a four-page suicide note, had a boyfriend charged with attempted murder, aggravated burglary, and beating Mindy, and was in such bad shape she couldn't perform in concert for 18 months. How about the time she spouted off against RCA/Nashville head Joe Galante, left the label, shifted to Capitol only to leave that label too?

"To be a girl, and to be loving like I am, and sweet like I am, it's hard not to get taken advantage of..." she once explained.

Mindy, at 21, became a country darling thanks to the slightly raunchy, girls-just-wanna-do-one-nighters 1996 hit "Guys Do It All The Time." Through the tumultuous decade, some believed her greatest strength was her enduring relationship with her mother, but...

The 31 year-old ex-star was recently accused of scratching her mom, and resisting arrest. Still on probation for two previous brushes with the law (an illegal buy on OxyContin in 2004 and a drunken driving incident in 2005 in which she was ultimately found guilty of driving with a suspended license), there was no way she could avoid doing time. "I could only say I'm sorry," she told the judge a few days ago. "Please give me a chance to make things as right as they can possibly be."
The judge credited her with the 75 days already served, and let her know that after she gets out, she'll be on two years probation. And if you think it's rough on her, think of Mindy's son, who isn't even 2 years old. It's been a long road downward from 1996 when she sold 2 million copies of her album "Ten Thousand Angels."

Ill winds blew Mindy off the charts...into the arms and fists of an abusive boyfriend, careening around roads, haunting drugstores with fake prescriptions, and writing suicide notes...Hopefully while she's away some royalties will trickle in on the old songs that still get radio play, and she can rebuild her life.

"Good As I Was To You" is a traditional bawlin' and boilin' ballad as Mindy gives a Parton-shot to an ex-lover sitting in a diner with his new flame: "Does this mean that you've won? Are you finally having fun? Is she your dream come true? She won't never be good as I was to you!" Oh, nope, nope, nope. Double-tracked pain, scolding violins and a few drippy piano teardrops tell of a country gal's heartache and inner strength.

If you've somehow missed Mindy, while saucing your cauliflowered ears on Dolly Parton or Sara Evans, give her a listen, and hey, maybe buy a CD. The gal could use some bucks when she leaves the ol' Graybar Hotel.
GOOD AS I WAS TO YOU Instant Download or Listen On Line. No porn ads, pop ups or code words