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Columbia Groovy Songbirds


JSngry

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https://www.dustygroove.com/item/899764?sf=Ranny+Sinclair&incl_oos=1&incl_cs=1&kwfilter=Ranny+Sinclair&sort_order=artist

Not the kind of thing to experiment with, you're either all in on the concept or else just walk away now, don't look back, no regrets. But I'm in, and this is marvelous, often not for the music, but all these women, only a few of which you're likely to recognize now, they made records for Columbia. How did all that happen? God only knows, the imagination reels with possibilities, all kinds of possibilities. It's like the crate-diggers and their Funky 45s on on the other side of the tracks, the tracks that lead to making a 45 or two for Columbia. You do that math.

Some of the records are ok, actually, and this one is really, uh...groovy!

Produced by Teo Macero, arranged by Dick Hyman, song by Floyd Huddleston and "D. Williams", did they have ANY idea what a pot record this was?

and then you get John Simon & Bonnie Herman!

etc etc etc.

These maths, should you choose to engage them, are just nuts. People got to this point and then did this, and then what happened? Too late to ask that, the records live!

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Just now, Chuck Nessa said:

Chills. Not in a good way.

Yeah, that's definitely one of the maths.

I mean, Lor Crane, pop A& R producer at Columbia Records, if that doesn't give you chills (not in a good way), your humanity is in a bad place.

Like I said, for specialized tastes only.

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That song's by "J. Levine" aka Joey Levine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Levine

Arranged by Allen Stanton:https://www.discogs.com/artist/270579-Allen-Stanton?page=1

Joannie Sommers could/can sing for real. It's a trip, and ultimately chills (not in a good way) that you have this potentially wonderful aspirational soar going on, and then you get to the bridge, and it's just some chick pouring it all out for pay in service of - again, for pay - what grownass men think that young girls want to hear about what these men think are there dreams for their future.

And yet, still a delightful piece of second-tier ear candy. At the same time it's some fucked up, probably totally unintentional misogynistic poison. The earlier the mindfuck takes hold, the less there will be to worry about. Until the game gets figured out #metoolongbeforetoday. It's poison, it's candy...IT'S CERTS!!!!

Groovy. Truly groovy.

 

 

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2 hours ago, JSngry said:

That song's by "J. Levine" aka Joey Levine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Levine

Arranged by Allen Stanton:https://www.discogs.com/artist/270579-Allen-Stanton?page=1

Joannie Sommers could/can sing for real. It's a trip, and ultimately chills (not in a good way) that you have this potentially wonderful aspirational soar going on, and then you get to the bridge, and it's just some chick pouring it all out for pay in service of - again, for pay - what grownass men think that young girls want to hear about what these men think are there dreams for their future.

And yet, still a delightful piece of second-tier ear candy. At the same time it's some fucked up, probably totally unintentional misogynistic poison. The earlier the mindfuck takes hold, the less there will be to worry about. Until the game gets figured out #metoolongbeforetoday. It's poison, it's candy...IT'S CERTS!!!!

Groovy. Truly groovy.

 

 

All too common in that era.  Especially creepy the more you know about Phil Spector.  And Gerry Goffin for that matter.  Carole King did outgrow that stuff by 'Tapestry'.

Image result for crystals he hit me

Edited by felser
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8 hours ago, GA Russell said:

That's Bernadette Peters top right, correct?

Which one is Joanie Somers?  Top center?

Correct on both counts.

12 hours ago, felser said:

All too common in that era.  Especially creepy the more you know about Phil Spector.  And Gerry Goffin for that matter.  Carole King did outgrow that stuff by 'Tapestry'.

Image result for crystals he hit me

IIRC, both that one and "Do The Screw"(?) were done for "business purposes", either as contract judo, or DJ mindfuck about B-sides, something like that. They were not meant to be taken seriously, although they didn't tell anybody that at the time, that would've blown the purpose.

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44 minutes ago, JSngry said:

IIRC, both that one and "Do The Screw"(?) were done for "business purposes", either as contract judo, or DJ mindfuck about B-sides, something like that. They were not meant to be taken seriously, although they didn't tell anybody that at the time, that would've blown the purpose.

You are correct on "Do The Screw", but "He HIt Me..." was actually a lavishly produced A-side.  But it creeped out too many people and did not chart, despite their songs immediately before it ("Uptown") and immediate after it ("He's a Rebel") being huge hits and absolute classics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Hit_Me_(And_It_Felt_Like_a_Kiss)

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Ok, I thought I remembered reading somewhere that they wrote it as some kind of a dark joke or something like that, maybe that Spector wanted something to put on a B-Side to force the A-Side and they figured, hey, this should do it. But maybe that was something and/or somebody else.

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Bonnie Herman had a weird solo career outside of the Singers Unlimited. She tried to launch a pop career with the John Simon prod., but then went into jingles.

Then she did some religious stuff like this:

And this:

Then she somehow wound up on ECM on a Eberhard Weber album:

Then did a Windham Hill album with Fred Simon, and somewhere along the line recorded some cuts on an Interfaith record, where she sings about Muslims, Christians and Jewish people.

After that, she recorded a thing with Lyle Mays called "Moses the Lawgiver" and finally was driven into retirement by Gen Puerling's death.

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I once got a very warm postcard from Herman after I wrote a favorable review of singer-pianist Audrey Morris, whom we both loved. Made my day. Never met her, though. She was/is married to a good Chicago-based drummer, Tom Radtke.

Interesting interview with Herman can be found in the midst of this Steve Cerra blog post about The Singers Unlimited:

https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-singers-unlimited-part-1.html

About "driven into retirement after Puerling's death" -- the interview suggests that she disliked performing in public and only felt at ease singing in the studio. One might guess that she also only or mainly felt at ease (inspired?) in the midst of Puerling's vocal settings and with her SU colleagues and just chose to call it quits.

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I've never heard her singing anything but that she didn't sound warm (no joke intended). She seems to be very much loved by those who have known and/or worked with her. Used to detest the SU, but that was because of only hearing them with the Boss Brass and stuff like that. Hear their a cappella things a few years ago and did an immediate revision of opinion. Then the albums with Farnon sealed the deal.

And I did not know that she's Woody Herman's niece!

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13 hours ago, JSngry said:

"Driven into retirement"? what does that mean?

I think I was trying to convey the sense that some outward force was controlling her career, but now that I read that interview Larry linked, it seemed it all had to do with the fact that she wasn't comfortable with live performance. I liked their discussion of the distasteful use of vibrato in both classical (opera) music and popular music. 

Here's that phenomenal thing she did with Lyle Mays:

 

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  • 4 months later...

I marvel at the level of detail the Japanese will apply as necessary.  This release has a thicker-than-usual booklet.  They resized the CD jewel case so the booklet fits comfortably within - it's a little thicker than the standard CD jewel case. Wild!

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